Fantastic food, elegance and a memorable experience beckon on the banks of Singapore River at Ricciotti Pizza Pasta Grill Riverwalk. To celebrate their 10th anniversary, this Italian restaurant has emerged with a sparkling new and elegant refurbishment and a thoughtfully curated menu. It's always useful to have a restaurant in mind that can impress for romantic dates, important family dinners and special occasions.
Staying true to their roots, Ricciotti Pizza Pasta Grill Riverwalk maintains Italian elements in every aspect of the restaurant. Imaginative paintings hand-drawn by Italian designer artist Keziat Terracciano are prominently hung around. There are also multiple specialized in-house chefs for various sections of the menu.
Start with an antipasta dish for the true Italian experience: Cioppino Soup ($25). Savoury and extremely generous with mussels and prawns, the brand manager, Walter Visioli, shared with us that this dish is a very rustic, homemade dish that women would cook for their husbands in the olden days. This is a powerfully seafood-infused stew with inklings of garlic paired with buttery crostini to dip.
Carpaccio di polpo ($18) is a picturesque of summer with citrus flavours and well-marinated octopus. Among all the antipasti, this is my favourite because of the very chewy, thinly-sliced octopus slices and the dimensions of tastes that rupture together. I wished the portions could be bigger though! It's the glutton talking again...
My first impression of the Eggplant parmigiana ($15) was that its well-execution... primarily because it actually made my mortal enemy eggplants taste appetizing! Baked with a satisfying layer of tomato sauce and cheese to create a lasagna composition, the texture of the eggplants at the bottom remains juicy and allows for "clean bites" rather than its usual slimy texture.
Nizzarda salad ($19) integrated pan-seared, fresh tuna loin surrounded with a complimentary nest of mesclun, green beans, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, anchovies, and very bouncy and soft-boiled quail eggs. Those eggs are the hot favourite of the table with sherry dressing.
Pollo alla milanese ($22) is a breaded chicken dish with very finely scattered bread crumbs on the surface, plated on potatoes, with tomato salad on the side. While the breaded chicken was pretty decent, the potatoes were the ones who took me by surprise - they retained moisture, oozed with parsley fragrance, slightly crispy edges... loved it!
This ear-shaped pasta orrecchiette broccoli e acciughe ($20) is one of those classic rustic Italian pasta dishes with a whiffs of anchovies, juicy cherry tomatoes and crunchy broccoli that got everyone raving!
How would an Italian meal be complete without some comforting risotto?! Since Ricciotti has seafood as their specialty, Risotto al frutti di mare would be the perfect marriage of these two elements. This turns out to be really creamy and consistent in terms of evenness of flavours and broth mixture with rather firmly dense rice grains. Anyone who loves seafood definitely shouldn't miss out on this.
Grilled seabass ($28) is not only an oceanic favourite, it is also my top pick out of all the main courses! The fleshy seabass has a tender yet firm bite. Its simple garnishing of tomato concasse capers allows the seabass to retain its original fresh taste. I love it! Not to mention, the wonderfully done potatoes appeared again in this dish.
Every chef at Ricciotti Pizza Pasta Grill Riverwalk has a specialization. For pizza lovers, Chef Akram will be the expert to satisfy your tastebuds!
We tried two flavours of pizzas: the Al tartufo pizza (top) and Porcini e scarmoza pizza (bottom)! The Al tartufo pizza referred to a beautiful amalgamation of full-bodied signature black truffle fragrance, earthy mushrooms, and quail eggs, while the Porcini e scarmoza pizza is lighter in taste, with a milkier cheese base.
Finally the most delightful part of the meal - desserts! The Nutella sweet pizza was swept clean off the plate as quickly as the cameras were done with them. An ingenious use of the familiar chocolate hazelnuts spread doubled with a second helping of crushed hazelnuts, there is no reason not to love this.
Except that the Tiramisu ($10) took my heart away and left me drowned in its excellently moist, chocolate mousse, mascarpone cream with crisp flakes, with a slight whiff of indulgent rum that doesn't overpower the overall taste. If you can only choose one dessert... this is it!
The Panna cotta ($8) comes a close second with a distinctive vanilla flavoured pudding that has maintained a wonderful texture - very wobbly, yet held together nicely - even though we were shifting the plate around quite a lot to take photos! Paired with the seasonal fruit compote - tasted like a combination of a lot of sweet & sour berries - the panna cotta seemed to drown a little but I love the panna cotta in itself.
Plenty of juice that stayed undiluted all night. I'm not sure how. It just happened.
Here are the menus for Ricciotti Pizza Pasta Grill Riverwalk.
And... the Seasonal Specials which you cannot miss because they are the absolutely heartfelt creations by the chefs with a limited appearance on the menu. The Tagliolini with butter and fresh white truffle sounds amazing already... grab it before it is gone!
A really wonderful tasting session organized by OpenRice Singapore in which we dined together and exchanged pointers about blogging (: Left to right: Brand manager - Walter Visioli, Kaeting, Hazel, Carine, Summer, Amie (me!), Janel, Eleanor, Alex, and Shaun.
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