Cosy comforts at Italian bakery-restaurant Atipico
The casual New Bahru eatery prefers to warm your heart with its baked goods and hearty fare, rather than impress with fine cuisine
NEW RESTAURANT
Atipico | Room #15 #01-15 New Bahru 46 Kim Yam Road Singapore 239351 Tel: 8616-1968 Open Tue to Thu: 9 am to 6 pm. Fri & Sat: 9 am to 10 pm.
YOU know how people are defined by certain characteristics or talents? Courage. Perseverance. Sociopathic tendencies. Stuff like that. Matteo Pertoldi, we are convinced, is defined by a gingerbread man.
You’re thinking it’s just a cookie, but it’s not. It’s a metaphysical allegory of one of the many insidious fallacies that Christmas perpetuates: that those deviously mouth-watering gingerbread men and houses you get suckered into buying every year actually taste good. Panettone is another fallacy, but more on that later. Gingerbread? It’s cinnamon-scented, baked cardboard mulch.
Pertoldi’s gingerbread men are not. They’re Christmas, crispified: crunchy, deeply fragrant with warm spices, and half-coated in chocolate as a final act of rebellion. And they’re a sign that whatever Pertoldi makes in his tiny little restaurant/cafe at New Bahru, he puts his heart in it.
Our first encounter with Atipico (Italian for “atypical”) was at a catered Christmas high tea. There was the epiphanic cookie. And there was Pertoldi, fussing over his panettone like he was preparing his first-born offspring for their Primary One debut. The panettone is also good, by the way, and we have pretty much ascertained that, when it comes to baked goods, this self-taught Italian architect-turned-baker/chef is the one to beat.
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While he has a takeaway outlet in the West Coast, the New Bahru outlet is Pertoldi’s first dine-in concept after a successful stint in private dining. It’s open for breakfast and right through lunch, until it closes at 6 pm on most days, but it’s open till 10 pm on Fridays and Saturdays to give Pertoldi a chance to flex his “cheffing” muscles even more.
Don’t expect anything of fine-dining calibre, just gutsy fare with flair. His affinity with anything baked seems intuitive and flawless; it’s less so when there’s actual cooking involved. But that’s because he tends to go overboard with the sauces and seasonings. It’s not about shortcomings per se – he just tries to kill you with kindness.
You have to start with bread, a crackling crusty sourdough (S$8) with a high moisture content – so it’s fluffy and airy inside. There’s a nice dollop of creamy yuzu butter with little bits of peel to prove it, and fruity olive oil to dunk the pillowy wedges in.
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Lobster pepper choux (S$22) are dainty canapes of choux puff with a gently crackling crust, and hollows filled with creamy lobster salad. A dusting of black pepper on the puffs’ surface lends a pleasant but assertive spicy bite, like a kick in the head without a concussion. You can polish this off pretty quickly.
Same with the potato paves (S$17). We thank the anal-retentive person in the kitchen who can calmly shave potatoes into 60 paper-thin slices without running amok, and press them into bite-sized stacks that are cooked till crisp to bite into, with a buttery soft finish. Black garlic paste is lightly smeared on the surface, and everything is covered in a snowstorm of grated cheese.
Pertoldi insists that we order the monkfish pasta (S$36), with his signature sauce that tastes like an entire family tree of datterini tomatoes gathered together to achieve Guinness-record-level tomatoey-ness. Monkfish is supposed to be the star with little nuggets of lobster imposters floating about, but this is just intense sauce with pasta as a condiment. Tomato-heads, rejoice. The rest, wade in with care. This is good, but there can be too much of it.
While strawberry salad (S$21) is served only at lunch, they can make it for you at dinner time if you ask, and you should. It’s a large bowl of super-fresh cherry tomatoes snuggling with strawberries, creamy burrata and bits of torched candied orange for happy jolts of sweetness.
The mains are hefty because somehow Pertoldi cooks like a famine is oncoming. Merluzzo (S$48) is a virtual block of snow cod heavily marinated in white miso like he’s trying to compensate for Nobu’s shortcomings, and roasted to a milky tenderness. It’s too sweet, but there’s puffed quinoa, edamame and broccolini to offset.
A wagyu hanging tender (S$52) is sous vide, then chargrilled, and tastes like a bulgogi steak with its sweet soy-sesame marinade. The silky, soft tangy braised onion helps to balance out the meat, along with smooth garlic-potato puree.
Dessert is of course a star attraction, and rock ‘n’ roll (S$13) has a mix of sticky, chewy chocolate cremeux, hazelnuts, feuilletine and other elements that overload your sweet receptors, but in a good way.
Stronger in bread and dessert, but more than competent in the hot food department, everything evens out at Atipico. Pertoldi doesn’t cut corners, and when he pays so much attention to a mere cookie, he’s definitely doing something right.
Rating: 7
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