La Pesa Trattoria - Darlinghurst

Spent some quality time with family over a quiet Friday Milanese dinner. It 's quite a cute place tucked 1 block behind busy Oxford Street.<br/ <br/ We ordered fried calamari, watercress salad with spicy pineapple and citrus king prawns, king prawn ravioli with creamy asparagus and saffron sauce, beef fillet and fish of the day. All dishes were extremely well received except the fish.<br/ <br/ Calamari was tiny and very crispy, like bite-sized parcels that melted in your mouth. Watercress salad was very unique and the grilled pineapple and citrus prawns really uplifted the flavour, a tad heavy on the olive oil though. I enjoyed the ravioli very very much as the king prawn filling was cooked so well the prawn still had a little 'spring ' with each bite. It gave me the perception that these were made in house and was very fresh. The beef was one of the best I 've experienced. Seared to perfection outside but medium inside with a really tender, melt in your mouth texture. Unfortunately, the fish was disappointing as there were still scales left on the skin. Overall, 4 out of 5 dishes done right is still a great effort.<br/ <br/ One thing I would note is that the host here is quite particular. As an example we weren 't allowed to order tapas as we were seated in the restaurant and we weren 't allowed to order beef more than medium cooked as this would destroy the beef. Don 't disagree on that 2nd point but a diner 's personal choice should be respected. <br/ <br/ I think this restaurant is a great place for a quiet first date or a little celebration. Will be likely to revisit in future.

I had this on a list of restaurants to try after reading Terry Durack’s very positive review in the Sydney Morning Herald in June 2010. But it took me over a year to get there and not a minute too soon!. My pal, D., arranged dinner for six. I knew the restaurant was Italian but forgot it was Milanese. I’m liking this trend of restaurants that specialize in a specific region, rather than a whole country or indeed a whole cuisine. We were greeted with tiny glasses of complimentary prosecco, a nice way for us to lead into the wonderful negronis that they serve.

Overall a great relaxed birthday dinner . Maybe not the best Italian restaurant, but still quite good.

La Pesa has been offering good Italian food for quite a while now. Their menu is a combination of both traditional and modern Italian cuisine and they also have an Italian tapas menu too.<br/ <br/ It's well located close to the CBD so it is easily accessible for working lunches as well as dinners. Sir dropped by with a few colleagues for a lunch recently.

Went here on a Groupon last night 3 courses and matching wines. The food is mainly Milan style, which suited us just fine as we wanted to try a few dishes we hadn't had since Italy. Shared an antipasto plate to begin with, and then had prawn risotto and the osso buco for mains. Great food, really tasty and well presented. The wines matched the food well.Service was quick and friendly. Would happily eat here again without a voucher.