Montalto Piazza Cafe
It was one of the hottest days in 2013, I had a Friday off work, and my DD was back from a month long holiday.
It called for a Friday Road Trip.
We roped in Thanh and Shellie, piled into Shellie’s car and headed down the Peninsula. On the drive down there was Spice Girls car singalong (yep, we have no shame), alpaca spotting (llama llama llama!) and a stop at the Vintage Shed for food blogging photo props.
After the Vintage Shed, and as the temperature inched up to 40°C, we stopped at Montalto for a casual lunch. Montalto is a lovely winery in Red Hill that consists of a vineyard, olive grove, sculpture garden, fine dining restaurant, and a more casual cafe just outside the restaurant.
The Piazza Cafe doesn’t take bookings, and has a short and simple menu – small grazing dishes and pizzas. We Fortunately, even though the took seats under the big umbrellas and enjoyed the view with a bottle of moscato ($23).
We ordered a couple of pizzas to share. The first was the cajun chicken, spinach, fennel, red caspsicum and preserved lemon yoghurt ($17).
And the second option was duck, caramelised onion and smoked mozzarella ($18).
Both pizzas were pretty good – really nice thin base – but the duck was better than the chicken one as it was more interesting flavourwise. I thought the chicken one needed a bit more oomph.
We also had fries with truffle aioli ($8). The truffle aioli worked really well really – enough to be interesting but not overpowering.
To round up our light lunch, we also shared the frittata with garden zucchini, herbs, house made relish ($10). Fairly simple but tasty and the relish was nice.
It started to get pretty warm sitting outside – even in the shade – so not long after eating we tasted a few wines in the cellar before jumping back into the air conditioned comfort of Shellie’s car to continue our road trip itinerary – cheese, cake, garden and gelato.
Montalto also do picnics but for something casual, the Piazza Cafe is a nice spot in a lovely setting. Definitely a nice way to spend a Friday.
View Off the spork in a larger map
Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove
33 Shoreham Road
Red Hill South
Web: montalto.com.au
msihua
March 6, 2013 @ 8:29 pm
Oh my.. We’re nearly up to our second road trip and I have no idea when I’ll get to this.. but hooray… xoxo DD
Agnes
March 6, 2013 @ 9:44 pm
Hooray to more road tripping 🙂
Hannah
March 7, 2013 @ 4:39 am
Babe, shame is NOT singing the Spice Girls on a road trip. Or at 4pm work dance parties.
Iron Chef Shellie
March 7, 2013 @ 9:22 am
yay for another road trip this weekend! I have the Spice Girls pre loaded as well. I do ban Mariah Carey again though. 😛
Great snaps, took me back to melting on the peninsula 😛
GourmetGetaways
March 7, 2013 @ 9:29 pm
What a gorgeous place!!I even love the menu and the “something extra” selection… delicious!
penny aka jeroxie
March 7, 2013 @ 10:16 pm
I have not been on a road trip lately… hang on… we drove to Canberra. Not as scenic and delicious though 😐
Jenny @ Ichigo Shortcake
March 8, 2013 @ 12:43 am
Looks like a lovely roadtrip! Weather’s fantastic for it and the food looked great too! Have fun on the 2nd one! 🙂
GourmetGetaways
March 10, 2013 @ 10:57 am
Oh I should add that I am totally jealous of the road trip too 😉