Quick Pasta at Volare

VOLARE Ristorante & Aparitivo Bar

Cuisine: Italian

Address: 85 The Strand, Tauranga

Phone: 07 5786030

Website

Drinks: Wine, beer, Aperitivi, leaning Italian

Reservations: for Dinner upstairs

 

It's nice to have Volare back. And let me apologise immediately for this somewhat scrappy blog. We weren't planning to go there and didn't really eat much. And I forgot to take pictures of the pasta till we'd started tucking in. So sorry to y'all and sorry to Volare for not doing justice to some really good food.

 

After nearly 20 years Volare is something of an Italian institution here in Tauranga and has been closed for renovations (and I assume earthquake strengthening) for several months. Now it is back and very much the same, the main restaurant upstairs and a bar downstairs. We popped into the bar at around 7pm on a lovely sunny Friday evening and sat on the (new) deck.

 

From the drinks list we had:

 

Amaretto Sour       $16

Bellini Prosecco      $15

 

The was nothing unusual about either drink - both were well-made and made us feel very Italian!

Food-wise, we were just there on a whim and checked out a couple of pasta dishes, one from the bar menu, one from the restaurant menu. They were perfectly happy for us to order from either menu downstairs.

 

TORTELLI (V) $26
Homemade pasta, ricotta, pumpkin, lemon in brown butter and sage

CARBONARA $18
Maccheroni, Pancetta, Parmesan, eggs, pepper

 

SORRY AGAIN FOR PICKING AT THESE BEFORE TAKING PHOTOS - THEY LOOKED REALLY GOOD BEFORE THAT! (What happened was I hadn't even considered writing about stopping in here since we were just passing and hadn't ordered much but then I took one bite of the Tortelli and thought Holy Crap this is fantastic so I called for a halt and we took pics.)

 

Carbonara

Tortelli

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dishes were both excellent. The Tortelli was pretty much textbook perfect pasta, with a lovely pumpkin/ricotta filling, tender pumpkin caramelised at the edges and spot-on brown butter sauce. Absolutely delicious.

 

Meanwhile you could actually quibble about the Carbonara. It had both a little onion and a little parsley in it. I know some folk even more anal retentive than me who would consider this absolute heresy and who would insist that proper Carbonara should only include cheese, eggs and ham. Frankly I didn't care since it tasted fantastic.

 

The only thing I'd mention that we noticed that was different is that Volare used to offer a bigger range of small plates downstairs which filled a few early evenings for us. Perhaps that will start again when the restaurant settles back in.

 

There is big competition at the moment in the Italian sector down in the CBD, what with both Bar Centrale and Sugo hitting the market. Volare is a little more unassuming. But that doesn't mean its food is in any way lesser. They really know what they're doing. 

 

Funnily enough, as we walked to the car we passed Sugo on Wharf Street and watched a waiter deliver their version of what we had just eaten:

Massimiliano buffalo ricotta tortellini, burnt butter, pumpkin, sage, parmesan, pine nuts ($24) 

Looking at it, aside from the pine nuts, I would not have been able to tell the two dishes apart. 

Surely this can't last but for the moment it's an Italian Fiesta in the CBD!