La Locanda, a new Italian restaurant set to open at the end of March, aims to expand customers’ perceptions of Italian food.
“Italian is a lot more than gnocchi or spaghetti with Napoli sauce,” Giuseppe Marra, La Locanda’s co-founder, says. “At our restaurant, we’ll do a lot of fish and combinations with mushroom porcini and truffle.”
Marra started La Locanda with chef Laura Middei, who he worked with in a restaurant when they arrived to Adelaide from Italy. Middei says their heritage greatly influences the food they make.
“I’m Italian and head chefs are all Italian, so we really know how to cook all the dishes,” she says.
“Because of that, nothing we make will be really traditional because there are a lot of restaurants in Adelaide, and we want to do something different.”
Dishes will include chargrilled octopus with hummus foam, cherry tomato confit and olive tapenade, fresh prawn ravioli with porcini, lobster bisque and lemon, and market fish with fresh fennel, dill, mint, and grapefruit.
Guests can eat the modern dishes in the restaurant’s simple black and gold interior, which is modelled after company Giorgio Armani, where Marra cooked in Milano in the past.
“We want to do something romantic yet relaxing, where customers can take time with a feeling of luxury,” he says. “It’ll be an atmosphere with a candle and intimate moments.”
Marra and Middei are looking forward to the opening to their first restaurant together.
“This restaurant is really our life, it’s our passion,” she says.
“This is my baby. It’s my dream.”
Find La Locanda at the end of March at 3/94 Frome Street.