Griglia Open Fire Italian Kitchen Fires Up The Grill at their Second Outpost In Katong
CONTENT: Michelle Ng
Think Italian food and comfort food comes to mind – with wood-fired grills and freshly baked pizzas best enjoyed with your loved ones. Griglia Katong is an intimate affair, with a cosy and intimate ambience to enjoy hearty, traditional Italian dishes. The second outlet of Griglia Open Fire Italian Kitchen brings the Italian summertime traditional of ‘grigliata’, where families and friends gather over the charcoal grill.
The power duo team of Executive Chef Andrea De Paolo and Group Beverage Manager Gilbert Fosson is evident as you peruse the complementary food and drinks menus – with over 70 wines from all over Italy to pair with a selection of dishes that feature the best flavours from the sea, land, and garden. The open fire grill is the main highlight, with various meats and seafood that comes tinged with smoky charr. While most of the menu is pretty similar to their Craig Road outlet, there are a couple of new dishes that piqued our interest.
For starters, the Crispy Focaccia is delicious on its own, and takes on another world when paired cheese shavings or a truffle paste cooked down with Marsala Wine. The Heirloom Tomatoes Carpaccio is made with freshly Sicilian tomatoes and lightly seasoned with Tarallo bread crumble pairs well with the Tuna Crudo that allows the fresh tastes of the ingredients to truly shine.
All the plates are meant to be shared, and it also works out as you can all try more dishes. A new pasta addition is the Fusilli “Monograno Felicetti”, a spicy Calabrian sauce and shredded crab pasta that is cooked over the charcoal for a savoury smoky edge. Another classic favourite is the Pappardelle, a pork cheek pasta cooked in a wine sauce.
The grilled meats comes in portions big enough to share between 2-5 people, and truly lives up to the ethos of the more the merrier. The 30 Days Dry Aged Porterhouse is tender and melts in your mouth, and tastes absolutely divine even with just a light sprinkling of salt. There is also a choice of red wine sauce, but we felt the meat was so good it didn’t need much condiments. From the sea, dive into the Whole Spanish Turbot for its sweet, meaty flesh full of flavour that only charcoal can bring out. And we can’t leave out the sides of Charcoal Grilled Baby Corn, a sweet crisp stalks that come with a brown butter Sabayon sauce or the Sauteed Kale, a cold salad drizzled with While Balsamico.
If you only have room for dessert, get the Nocciolamisu which was unanimously voted as one of the best tiramisus in Singapore by the table. The tiramisu has the right balance of mascarpone, espresso, and fluffy cake that isn’t overly moist with rum and espresso, and our gripe was that we wished we had an entire portion to each of us! The Sgroppino is a boozy, freshing dessert that cleans up the palette after the meal, with a lemon sorbet served with a splash of Prosecco.
On the weekends, Griglia Katong will be presenting Weekend Grigliata menu which curates selection of the restaurants bestsellers and dishes. The Weekend Grigliata is only available at the Katong outlet, and the feast comes with three appetisers, two free-flow pastas, two main dishes, and a dessert at S$68++ per person that allows you to taste a wider selection of dishes without doing too much damage to your wallet.
Griglia Open Fire Italian Kitchen’s new Katong branch is located at 139 East Coast Road, Singapore 428829.
