I’ve never been shy in alluding to the fact that Park Road’s cafes and restaurants are over-rated. Their flare fizzled out with the turn of the new millennium and as a result, I’ve resorted to driving to Rosalie or the City in search of a lunch-time feed, or what’s worse, packing my own lunch from home (boooo).
However, I was cruising the strip last week and noticed that there are a few new kids on the block, trying their luck in the big Euro-inspired smoke. Bistro Alegria took my fancy, so I popped in for a quick lunch with the girls to see if it could cut the mustard.
The first tick in the box for Mediterranean inspired Alegria was the fact that it was air conditioned. Many of the cafes on Park Rd are alfresco style, which makes for a fairly sweaty experience at this time of year…particularly if you’ve just hiked your hungry self up the hill to get there. We were greeted at the door by a friendly waitress and seated towards the front of the restaurant which is decorated very elegantly. It’s obvious the owners have invested a fair amount of time and money in making the interior ‘just right’ – they haven’t cut a single corner with the fit out and decorating.
The restaurant was very busy and as I did my usual scan of the room I noticed a mixed contingency of patrons, all seemingly enjoying themselves and creating quite a loud banter over the Italian inspired tunes playing (a little too loudly) from the wall mounted speakers.
The staff were prompt in attending to our drinks orders, however were a little slow to deliver and as I looked towards the bar/kitchen area things seemed a little out of order and clumsy. Things soon got back on track though and we were given the tough job of choosing between the tapas or the a la carte menu. If we had more time for a lazy lunch we would have chosen the tapas as the choices sounded mouthwatering and flavoursome. However, we were on a tight time schedule so chose a light lunch of lightly grilled bread with roasted garlic to share, as well as the marinated grilled chicken skewers on a capsicum bruschetta. Unfortunately the three of us chose the same main dish, which doesn’t make for great feedback on how other menu items fared.
The bread and roasted garlic starter was a winner and in fact I’ve never seen garlic presented this way – my companion JA smothered her lightly grilled and oiled bread with the warm, gooey garlic (obviously didn’t have any meetings to attend for the afternoon!) and made gentle grunts of satisfaction as she devoured her share. I was a little more reserved on the garlic and the grunting, but enjoyed it all the same.
The chicken skewers arrived shortly after we inhaled our starter. Two skewers of plump, juicy chicken pieces elegantly rested over a large piece of grilled sourdough, piled high with roasted capsicum, red onion and basil leaves drizzled with olive oil. At first glance it didn’t look adequate enough to fill our ravenous tummies, but as we piled our forks high with the deliciously light and tangy combination of Mediterranean flavours over and over again, it was obvious that our hunger would be satisfied. The chicken was grilled to perfection and slid off the skewers with minimal effort and the elements of the bruschetta were balanced well, with no overpowering onion flavours.
Seeing as my party of three wasn’t too adventurous with the menu selection, I made a conscious effort to subtly catch a glance at the fare at our neighboring tables. On one side the plate of mussels looked and smelled slightly spicy with tomato based aromas and unfortunately were just out of arm’s reach…surely they wouldn’t have noticed. Their plate of grilled octopus looked pretty tasty too. On my other side, was a very generous helping of the quesadilla and salad.
As we fixed up the bill, it looked like the wait staff had lapsed back into their clumsy, flustered pattern that we’d experience earlier. In fairness, they have only been open for two weeks and I suspect at lunch rush hour they’re still trying to find their feet.
We walked away with tummies content and for about $18 each we hadn’t broken the budget – and we were in and out well within our 1hour time limit.
- Bistro Alegria, Shop 11, 20 Park Rd, Milton +61 7 3369 7775
Love the food here. Been twice now, once for lunch and once for dinner. Lunch was excellent with the roast pork roll, which had a fantastic dressing/sauce. Very reasonably priced. Dinner was very good. We had mains, but would have loved to try the tapas.