It’s mid-week, a chilly 10 degrees celsius, and Sydney is putting its best effort into a Winter storm. Typically all factors pointing towards locking yourself indoors by the heater, however when Mille Vini offers up the chance for some authentic Italian paired with stunning wines and live jazz, you suddenly have the best way to spend a rainy Winter eve.
Within thick sandstone walls, and underneath the original wooden rafters of what used to be a stonemasons workshop, the revamped Mille Vini is an inviting space. Dim lighting, reflecting off stunning marble surfaces and the dulcet sounds of smooth jazz all culminate in a space that just begs for you to settle in with a bottle (or two) of gorgeous Italian wines.
To get things started, we chose to sample a fantastic 2021 Fasoli Gino Corvina light red, and a Southside cocktail while we perused the menu. The starters range from oozy burrata, crudo, oysters and – the house favourite – the crostini stracciatella (small miniature toasted breads with toppings such as olive puttanesca, anchovies or cured capocollo).
All the dishes on the menu seem straight out of a tuscan farm house and these sumptuous dishes are freshly made by Mille Vini’s busy kitchen, led by an amazing all-female chef team. As far as what we settled on we couldn’t go past the 30-month-aged prosciutto di parma, served with the (optional but how could you not!?) burrata.
This was followed by another glass (or two) of red to accompany a potato gnocchi, mushroom trifolati with green garlic and freshly grated parmigiano. The gnocchi was cooked to perfection and the green garlic shone through beautifully. The portion sizes were so generous that by the time we tucked into our second main a pork and fennel ragu cavatelli, we were so stuffed we didn’t have room for dessert.
This was definitely our loss as the table next to us received a salted caramel tiramisu white chocolate, hazelnut crunch. We did ask them how it was and they said they were in heaven… enough said.
Mille Vini, 397 Crown Street, Surry Hills
Live jazz trio every Wednesday night from 6:30pm – 9:30pm. Bottomless Brunch every Saturday and Sunday for $99 – more details at millevini.com.au
