Fico – Risotto Heaven

Fico – Introduction

Fico in Macquarie Street is one of Hobart’s best and most popular restaurants. The transformation of this former newsagency cum café has been astounding.

The owners and chefs here are Federica Andrisani and Oskar Rossi who are young but with lots of experience in high-end restaurants in Australia and Italy.

The space is light and airy and the tables are set well apart. The open kitchen provides a link between the chefs and the diners and a bar area provides a space to snack and have a drink from the clever wine list.

Fico – The Food

At a meal on the first night we were delighted with both the price and the quality of the food. The chickpea polenta chips, the zucchini flowers with tomato, basil and ricotta, the linguine with bug tails, the venison cappelletti (little hats) with olive, majoram and speck and the asparagus and taleggio risotto were just a few of the standouts.

And we went back for lunch a few days later and were delighted with a dish of fish “wings” – the part that people often throw away yet they have so much flavour! And, of course, we ordered the risotto again and it was excellent.

We have returned to Fico on a number of occasions since and have always been truly satisfied with the food. Even during the Covid lockdown, they were providing an excellent service selling five course takeaway dinners that you finished off at home. They put a lot of thought into these dinners and Hobart residents were suitably grateful for the service.

While we need to stress that the food at Fico is amazingly good, we need to urge people to make sure they try the risotto – it is always outstanding!

There have also been an exciting recent development. They now have a Bar Menu under which some experimental dishes are being trialled, based around their excellent focaccia, pastries and pasta. There are limited spaces available on Friday and Saturday nights and only the Bar Menu available for Sunday night.

We went to try the Bar Menu on a recent Sunday night and were delighted with the offerings. The first fish we tried was the pizza fritta which was an airy cloud of pastry topped with delicious slices of mortadella, there was also buffalo cheese made from the rich Tasmanian buffalo milk and very good finely shaved jamon.

But it was the Hare Party Pie on which the most praise was lavished, This small pastry filled with minced hare was a triumph. It was accompanied by game jus and a punchy Bois boudran sauce. This was a great dish and signifies exactly what the chefs are trying to do with these Bar Menus.

For bookings there is an email address on their Web site which you can get to by clicking on the link below and then scrolling to the bottom of the page:

Fico Hobart