il Passaggio is a licenced modern Italian Restaurant at the Fishermen's Wharf in the South Coast NSW sea-side town of Bermagui. You can come and have a quick glass of wine with an antipasti or pizza, or you can sit on the banquette and look at the boats in the harbour while you enjoy a three course dinner.
We have a simple menu that uses as much local produce as we can find. The South Coast of NSW offers up many wonderful ingredients and our simple Italian menu aims to keep the integrity of each one.
Autumn 2012
Happy Easter to all. We are still open 7 nights over Easter with our usual Fri Sat Sun Lunches. We are unbelievably excited about the Four Winds Festival and wish the organisers and artists every success.
So moving on to food, what a tomato summer it was. There were so many plump red local tomatoes, it must have been the right rain and the right sun because we were still being given them right into March. Travis's much sought after toms from Coolagolite were delicious again this year, perfect for an insalata caprese and a tomato risotto with basil and mascarpone and rosemary.
And now we have moved into Autumn with a downpour and hello to the mushrooms on the pizza and the risotto with thyme and mascarpone.
John at Coolagolite has opened his roadside stall once again and we never pass without stopping to get the first crunchy apples and the small dark matsuma plums and then his wonderful figs. White and Black figs straight from his tree that morning. Simply grilled with honey for dolce and we are serving them in a very popular new dish with the ricotta gnocchi with chilli, lemon and cream.
In Wendy's garden, the first pommegrannate and the apples and quince are falling by the bucket load, The Fennel has gone to seed and we have had little fingers working to collect the fennel Seeds to use throughout the year. She counted 29 very large pumkin that have usurped the lower garden so the pumpkin crespelles won't be leaving the menu anytime soon. We are looking forward to the abundance of citrus growing in the orchard.
Steve has been supplying us with Kingfish & Matt is ever reliable with the Blue Eye. The big fish are coming in. We are serving our local catch with a herb crust, saffron potatoes and peperonata. We are also looking forward to the tuna boats going out again so we can start to use the Yellowfin & the Albacore.
On the staff front, Emily has returned to LA, we all miss her but are very happy to pass on that she and Henry have tied the knot! Big Congratulations. Helen has returned to Canberra to uni & a new job, Matt is moving north again & we wish him well. Hannah is making plans for her life &it seems a move might be imminent there too. We welcome three experienced new staff members - Mel who has just moved to Bermi, Paul who has a lot of experience in local restaurants and Oz from Dignams Creek. Sam Davis from "Strangers in paradise" is making a few guest appearances, which always makes life a little interesting.
...see previous news items in our archive section