Where I Ate Last with Tony Astle: Bivacco

This week on Where I Ate Last, Tony Astle ate at Bivacco, a fine dining Italian restaurant on Auckland’s Customs Street. 

He sampled the beef carpaccio, fried calamari, the BBQ wagyu tongue, and the delicious trevelly crudo. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

 

Recipe of the Week: Lime Marinated Raw Fish (Pacific Style) 

Ingredients 

500 g tarakihi fillets, dice to the size of your small fingernail  

3 medium limes juiced, and the zest of one of the limes  

½ tsp salt  

50 g each of: red onion, red capsicum, green capsicum, celery  

120 g diced ripe tomato  

2 spring onions, cut lengthways  

1 tsp garlic, crushed  

½ tsp chilli   

50 ml olive oil  

225 ml coconut cream  

Fresh coriander or parsley, to taste   

 

Method

1. Combine the diced fish, juice and zest, and ½ tsp salt. Mix well, cover, refrigerate for 2 hours. 

2. Prepare the diced vegetables and sliced green onions. Refrigerate. 

3. In a new bowl, combine the olive oil, garlic and chilli. 

4. After 2 hours, or when the fish is a white opaque colour, strain off the juice. Discard the juice. 

5. Add the drained fish to the olive oil, garlic chilli mix. Stir. 

6. Next, add the coconut cream and vegetables to the fish, reserving some spring onion for garnish. 

7. Check seasoning, adjust, then sprinkle with coriander or parsley. 

8. Serve with a salad, or on its own as a starter. 

 

Note: This dish needs seasoning. Also, don't be afraid to add more chilli, especially if you like it hot. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Finding the hidden gyms at the hospitality scene where I
ate last with Tony Astell on Kerry WOODAM Mornings. Yes,
Chef Tony Astell from the iconic Antwine's Restaurant in Parnel
joins me. Now, good morning and good morning to you.
It's always lovely to see you. You get me nice
and hungry and already from my lunch, which is fabulous.

(00:21):
Where have you been dining?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, this time I went to Bavaco, which is a
one market place in the viaduct. It's just run by
headquarters around that.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Oh yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Been there quite a while now. I think it used
to be headquarters at buildings only enough and anyway, now
it's sort of Italian and it was interesting. A lot
of people had told me to go there, and so
I went and.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
It was mixed.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
So it's the flavors are fantastic, but some of them
I think probably too many flavors spoils the hero of
the dish. Like you know me, I can't help myself
with raw meat, and I can't help myself with off. Also,
there was raw meat and there was tongue on there,
so of course those little feat started going. However, they
had to stop at one stage because the capaco was fantastic,

(01:08):
but there was just so much on top, like overpowering truffle.
Now truffle's very pungent, and so the meat got lost
a little bit. So there was nothing wrong with the
dish at all. It just needed tweaking a little bit.
So I think maybe someone should taste it from time
to time. There was just too much parmesan, and the
truffle was really overpowering.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
And actual truffle, not truffle oil.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
No, it was truffle oil, but too strong. Anyway, the
dish is fantastic, but I'm just hoping they're listening to
this because you know that it could be an amazing dish,
but it just didn't quite get there. As far as advocates.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Still got three texts, which is pretty good out of fire.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
The ingredients were fantastic, so you can't knock those. But
and then of course then there was the fried kalamari.
Well Kalamari's kalamari, but it was very tender. But see,
I'm going to actually go back on what I've just said.
There was not enough flavor in the in the calamari.
It was just it was cooked to perfection. But it
still fried kalamariy, So that wasn't my choice. That was

(02:06):
a guest and they loved it, so that's fine. Then
I had, of course, then off I went with the
but I saw the tongue and I thought, I just
can't help myself with this. And it was so it's
wagu tongue, which is you know, it's quite fatty, so
it should be beautifully tender. Well this was totally tender,
but too tender, you know, tongue you need that little bite,

(02:28):
you know, and this was cut very very thin, so
when you put it in your mouth, it actually sort
of dis disappeared. It was It's a shame because the
flavors once again was amazing, but they also had a
sweet mustard with it. Now they had the oyster mushrooms,
which a phoenix tale and they were fantastic, and it
just didn't mold together, you know. I once again, there

(02:53):
was absolutely nothing wrong with the ingredients. But I just
think the hero was the tongue.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Is it just balancing and there was too.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Much underneath, even the jew that was there. It was
a shame because it could have been a magnificent dish.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I don't think I've ever eaten tongue. If you what
would I like to eat? That would then make me
want to eat tongue? Does it make sense? Like what
other kind of meat would I? Well, it's do you
need to like.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's got a texture to it, but yeah, you know,
it's tongue because you unless you want to chop it
up and do bits and pieces. You put on little
skills and do things. But a tongue is a tongue,
and you know what, I immediately think, where's that tongue being?
You know, and we all know tongues get away with us,
you know.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, wait, you're not telling me on that one?

Speaker 2 (03:38):
That would have you know, that would have just had
a few more textures. I would have given that another tick.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
But it's still three ticks, still pretty good.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
But then the hero. The hero was the fish. It
was the Travali crudo. Was unbelievably magnificent. That the fish
was so fresh. Now Travali people think bait. It was
absolutely magnetic. And the flavors they had, well, it had
green chili, apple, lemon oil, and father beans which has

(04:06):
broad bean, so that was a leaf. Anyway, I didn't
have this. I obviously stole some. But the person. They
had it. They just didn't want anything else. They just
kept eating and eating and eating. It was unbelievably magnificent.
Got five brilliant, you know, so they really did redeem
themselves there, and I thought the chef is amazing. However,

(04:26):
I just think maybe you just lost the plot a
little bit that day, and you've got to actually keep
an eye on things like that, because you know, you
go back and someone else since I've been there, said, look,
they had the same problem, but then they went back
a week late and it was totally different again. So
you know, it's just one of those things. And at
the moment people are really critical.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Is that actually yes, well people are, you know, spending
their hard earned money and they have high expectations, don't they.
Is that one of the key things a restaurant needs
to be successful is that consistency, so that you know
that when you go, every time.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
You going to get well, you know, I was at
Antoine's for nearly fifty years and people used say golf
so boring. It's always the same. Well do you know what,
I seem to be quite successful for fifty years and
those people came back every week. Now with that duck
nailed into the one before. They would throw it at
me across the chests. But they'll probably get thrown back,
I might say.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
But tell me about the chargrilled stepfa.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Well, now once again, now that fish was perfectly cooker,
had good crispy skin on the top. The flesh was
beautiful and white. But then it had all the stuff
and it was buttermilk, dill, pickled mussels, salery, horseradish. Once again,
the fish is subtle. Yeah, and look, some of the
best fish you ever had will be just talking about

(05:43):
the crudo, not played with too much. It's there, it's beautiful,
it's fresh, nothing wrong with the product. I just think,
once again, someone, I think sometimes people just get a
little bit too clever, and we all love to be clever,
and I think that one once again. But the handcuf
fries were interesting, because absolutely perfect. But I had all
this parmesan on. I have a funny feeling it didn't.

(06:04):
It wasn't freshly shaved. It came out of it just
didn't taste magnificent chips.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
This menu feels like a great lunch menu to me.
Is it open for lunch? And didn't it?

Speaker 2 (06:15):
We went for lunch and well, it's a very lunchy restaurant.
Time to be there. And then it was a beautiful day.
We've got outside tables. Why I had a bit of
a problem with because it's an Italian from Umbria. It
had been open too long and I got the last
bit of it and it was it should have been
sent back, but I didn't.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
I had it.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
And then they opened another bottle and we had it.
So once again, you've got to be careful if you're
serving wine by the glass, don't leave it too long
because it does go off.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Ah, fascinating, Tony, Thank you so much. All you need
to remember is the crudo when you go to the bacle.
It's the buccle okay, the bacco. Perfect for lunch on
a beautiful Auckland day. Thank you so much, Tony. Do
you have a recipe for us to put on our website?

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Possed on crew And it's actually stolen from a friend
of mine and that's actually easy, and please go in
and please don't keep texting me and asking me to
see the recipe. It's on the line.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
It's all there at news Talks.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Don't trying this one.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Dot in Zid