Atta is a new Indian restaurant in Port Melbourne. The venue is gorgeous with brick walls, high ceiling, arched hallways, colourful Indian artwork on the walls, white table cloths and lavish fresh flowers. The flavours of tradional Indian food was captured, modernised and presented beautifully on the plates. The food had a modern elegance while staying true to their roots.
The evening started well with a little samosa bite with tamarind and yoghurt sauce and a glass of champas.
For entrée we had Murgh tikka which was delicious. The base was a potato and spinach tikki (kind of like a fritter) with a creamy mint chutney, coriander infused oil and a piece of spicy tandoori chicken on top.
The second entrée was Sikandari raan, which is a dish from back in the day, like as far back as 300BC. Years ago it was first served to an Indian king. Obviously the dish has been modernised but it’s always fun to be eating a dish with interesting origins. It came out in a smokey cloche of applewood smoke and revealed the braised leg of lamb, sous vide Dutch carrots, herb potatoes and mint chutney below. It looked and tasted wonderful.
Then the curries came out. The murgh makhani (commonly known as butter chicken) was amazing. You can tell a good Indian restaurant when they take a classic dish like this and make it memorable.
There was a lamb do piazza with diced lamb, tossed vegetables, onion & tomato curry. A beef mircha which was kind of like a vindaloo with tender beef, tempered mustard & sun dried chilli, onion and tomato. And lastly the dal bukhara, slow cooked black lentils, infused aromatic spices, coriander butter & cream. All the curries had a lovely balance of spices and freshness and came with the perfect sides, saffron rice, tandoori naan & garlic naan.
We finished on a couple of beautifully refined desserts. One was a silky smooth creamy saffron panna cotta with a sweet and tart blackberry coulis, pops of saffron honey gels and honey drizzled on the plate.
The second dessert was ras malai, which was a big cottage cheese dumpling with saffron & pistachio chhana (kinda like melt-in-your-mouth ricotta) and freeze dried raspberry.
The staff were friendly and generous, and the food was outstanding. It was a lovely Indian feast and we left very satisfied. The venue was beautiful and elegant and would be lovely for a function.
I heart Atta!
Olives x
Atta
Address: 159 -161 Victoria Avenue, Albert Park VIC 3206
Website: attarestaurant.com.au
Phone: (03) 9696 3388
Trading Hours: Tue-Sun: 5pm-10pm
