Everyone loves a good Italian meal especially a traditional Italian meal prepared with the Southern Italian love towards good food. Named after Italy’s most iconic volcano, the name ETNA also represents excellent produce and finest ingredients from the Sicily region. The name is also a clever play of representing the restaurant’s pride and focus on delivering truly Italian hospitality.
ETNA has since evolved from a humbling trattoria to a more sophisticated ristorante taking on a contemporary approach offering a wide range of Mediterranean-influenced dishes.
There is a wide range of dishes from pasta, meats and seafood as well as popular Italian desserts.
Before the starters arrived, you will be served a bread basket with warm bread and bread sticks and olive oil with balsamic vinegar for dipping. The bread was not entirely freshly baked as some of it was quite hard.
We had 2 starters, the first was grilled calamari with creamed chick pea sauce, mashed potato and crispy onion strips. This was an excellent dish with the calamari perfectly grilled with a succulent bite and nice smoky grilled fragrant. The chick pea sauce was very creamy and buttery and presented a very nice flavour to the grilled calamari.
The clam and mussels white wine vongole had a huge serving but was quite a disappointment. While the clams and mussels were very fresh and juicy, the white vine sauce was quite bland. I like a thicker gravy with stronger garlic, parsley and wine taste.
The chef special that day was the cocoa pappardelle which is basically a very thick version of fettuccine. The pappardelle was made with cocoa powder but do not taste sweet. Instead there is a nice fragrant to the pasta taste and the mushroom cream sauce added to the overall earthy taste of the plate.
The lobster ravioli with pistachio nut cream sauce and prawns was very unusual and not common in our Italian restaurant. The ravioli was stuffed full with lobster meat and the prawns were very springy and succulent. The cream sauce was a surprise as it had a strong nutty and earthy taste which actually went very well with the lobster ravioli.
The 48 hours slow cooked beef which my friend had was quite soft and juicy. However, it did not melt in the mouth as expected.
The tiramisu was decent but was very light on the liquor. The cream taste was heavier on the cake with a lot of pistachio nut shavings instead of the cocoa powder. It was a pretty difference tiramisu cake from the usual.
The chocolate lava cake is always a pleaser with warm lava chocolate coming out from the center and creamy thick vanilla ice cream at the side.
Overall, Etna is a pretty good authentic Italian restaurant servings unique dishes. This is my 3rd visit to Etna and I was disappointed to see that some of their better items were taken off their menu and some of their dishes were not as nice anymore.
Address: 110 Upper East Coast Road, 455298
Operating hours: 12 pm to 10.30 pm
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