Hidden in a quiet alley you could
easily walk past Berta without noticing its presence. Walking through two glass
doors you enter into a lively bar / restaurant. You can tell a restaurant is
doing something right when they are packed with a cheerful, buzzy crowd on a
Tuesday night.
Berta holds Sagra dinners every
Tuesday night. Sagra means festival in Italian, and at Berta they celebrate a
seasonal ingredient through featuring that ingredient in each dish of the four
course dinner. A month before, chef O Tama Carey would go through what’s in
season and talk to their organic famers about what they have coming up. Once
she’s decided on the key ingredient, it becomes a brain exercise on coming up
with new ideas and flavours to go with that ingredient.
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The ever-changing blackboard menu
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The intriguing street view from our table
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Pickled jars and wine above the bar
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Tonight’s seasonal ingredient is duck
(yay duck!) and we gleefully booked in to pre-celebrate Lu’s birthday. Our
first course is a selection of antipasto plates: “Pate flat bread blood orange
mostarda”, “Cured smoked pickled” and “Cauliflower chervil black olive
eschallots”. To start we have the oh-so-more-ish creamy duck liver pâté with sweet
blood orange marmalade on the crisp flat bread. It is the most appetising
starter to kick off a feast with. Next we had the delicious cured and smoked duck
with cherries, egg, cheese puree and Cuban bread and a refreshing cauliflower
salad.
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L Loves... Pate flat bread blood orange mostarda
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Cauliflower chervil black olive
eschallots
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L Loves... Cured smoked pickled
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Our second course is the spicy duck
heart pasta. I think this is where the chef is testing her boundaries (and ours!).
The chopped pieces of duck heart is quite gamey and the tagliatelle is a little
on the soft side. I would have preferred it to have a slight bit of bite. Though
an interesting dish, it is probably my least favourite dish tonight.
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Tagliatelle spicy hearts sorrel
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Our main course is less daring but full
on flavoursome. A liberal serve of crunchy pistachio and farro rests on top of
the roasted duck breast and pork and duck neck sausage. The accompanying side is
chunky roast potato chips cooked in duck fat.
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Roasted breast pork and duck neck
sausage
White bean pistachio farro vincotto
Duck fat roast potatoes |
As we ate, we wondered how they are
going to incorporate duck into the dessert. Half way through the meal, chef Carey
stood in front of the blackboard menu and explained the sagra concept as well
as each dish to us. Our dessert is a ricotta custard tart, with the custard made
from duck eggs. The subtly sweet ricotta custard, with the crisp sage, citrusy
lemon curd and thin pastry crust is simply heaven.
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L Loves... Ricotta
sage custard tart lemon curd
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To my surprise Berta managed to serve us duck in so many ways, yet I don’t feel like I have eaten too much duck. All and all Berta Sagra is a fantastic experience which I would look forward to trying again!
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The covert entrance - don't miss it!
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L's Verdict:
• Taste: 8.5/10
• Ambience: 3.5/5
• Value: 4/5
• Service: 3.5/5
• Creativity and other WOW factors: 5/5
Overall rating: 24.5/30
Berta
17-19 Alberta St
Sydney NSW 2000
Ph: (02) 9264 6133
Lunch: Wed to Fri from 12pm
Dinner: Tues to Sat 6pm-late
Visited Sep 2013
Friendly advice: Try
their 4 course Sagra dinner which is superb value at $55 pp. They have a different seasonal
ingredient every Tuesday night. Check
out Berta’s website for the upcoming seasonal ingredients.
