Fradis Minoris is a fish restaurant on the southern coast of Sardinia within the city of Pula that has simply acquired its first Michelin star. It’s situated on the dam that separates the lagoon of Nora from the open sea.
The stroll over the dam to the restaurant underlines the very acceptable location for a fish restaurant.
The tables are proper on the seafront, with the fixed sound of the surf as background music.
There are 4 degustation menus to select from: 5 programs fish (95 euros), 5 programs fish/vegetarian (80 euros), 7 programs fish (110 euros), and seven programs fish/vegetarian (95 euros). We opted for 7 programs fish, with wine pairing (80 euros).
We began with a glowing Vermentino from Sardinia, with the second fermentation within the bottle and aged 66 months on the lees. Fairly recent with notes of bruised apple.
The amuse bouche had been very nice. They included smoked tuna on a seaweed cracker, pane carasau with very sturdy runny cheese, an area cherry tomato, spicy pickled mussels, and a terrine of fish heads.
The primary wine was a rosé made out of Cannonau (Grenache).
It was an excellent pairing for the primary dish: uncooked shrimp with apple and seaweed. This dish performed closely on the unctuous texture of the shrimp, which makes it tough to pair a wine. However the rosé labored.
The dish was accompanied by seaweed bread and shrimp butter, which is butter flavored with the heads of the shrimp (and werved within the form of a flamingo, a chook that forages on shrimp within the lagoon).
The next wine was an orange wine from autochthonous grapes from Sardinia. It was fairly astringent by itself, however with the dish it was very good.
The second course consisted of two elements: an oyster with do-it-yourself kefir, served with burning mirto to offer a smoky scent…
…and uncooked ricciola (amberjack) with a bell pepper sauce and crispy pores and skin.
The third was one other rosé, this time a mix of 10 mild skinned and darkish skinned autochthonous grape varities. It isn’t allowed to make rosé by mixing white wine with crimson wine, however it’s allowed to combine mild skinned and darkish skinned grapes when fermenting the wine. This wine was fairly acidic by itself, however once more the dish introduced out the flavour of the wine.
The dish was ‘buttons’ of recent pasta crammed with extremely aged pecorino cheese, served in a concentrated fish soup with scorpionfish tartare. It’s often thought of sacrilege in Italian delicacies to combine seafood with cheese, however the chef doesn’t care about guidelines however provided that it tastes good. And the sturdy flavors of fish soup and cheese did certainly go alongside, though they had been so sturdy that the scorpionfish solely supplied a textural component.
It was very considerate that some bread was supplied to mop up the fish soup afterwards, which known as fare la scarpetta.
The next wine was a Vernaccia from Sardinia, which isn’t the identical grape selection as Vernaccia from Tuscany.
This fruity wine was an excellent pairing for one more ‘sacrilegious’ dish: liguine with pecorino and bottarga. The linguine with the pecorino was ready in the way in which of spaghetti cacio pepe, after which a beneficiant quantity of bottarga was grated on high of it. A youthful model of pecorino was used for this, and the mix was very good. What made this dish much more particular is that the waiter advised us he had caught the flathead gray mullet (muggine) himself within the lagoon, and that the bottarga is made out of scratch by the restaurant. Bottarga is the salted and cured roe pouch of the gray mullet and a specialty of Sardinia.
As a wine lover and connoisseur I prefer to strive new grape varieties and so I actually loved all the weird Sardinian wines on this pairing. The subsequent one was a Semidano.
It was an excellent pairing for grilled octopus with pureed lentils and a peach sauce. The octopus was very flavorful and chewy however tender.
The sixth wine was a Malvasia, once more not associated to the Malvasia from elsewhere in Italy.
This fragrant wine was an excellent pairing for the gray mullet with squash puree. The fish was moist and cooked to perfection.
It was served with some ‘dashi’.
The dessert wine was a properly balanced and recent moscato passito.
It was an excellent pairing for the chocolate, figs, and seaweed dessert, that was very appropriately formed like a sea shell and coral.
The friandises had been additionally good and included mirto, grapes, and chocolate with dulce de leche.
Our first go to to Fradis Minoris turned out to be a really nice shock (as we didn’t know what to anticipate). The meals was very artistic. Typically maybe a bit extra artistic than scrumptious, however at all times very tasty and properly executed.
I actually loved the wine pairings, that includes solely wines from Sardinia and solely from small producers and most from obscure autochthonous grape varieties. And the entire wine pairings labored, even with some dishes that had been tough to pair with. So subsequent to a proficient chef there’s a very proficient sommelier at work right here.
The service was very pleasant and educated, and the employees could be very concerned with the restaurant. I already talked about that the waiter can be a fishing from the lagoon. At the beginning of the meal the service was too sluggish and the restaurant appeared understaffed although not all tables had been in use, however after some time it picked up after which the tempo of the meal was excellent.
I’ll undoubtedly return subsequent time we’re in Sardinia. To complete a photograph of the lagoon (with the restaurant within the again) by daylight:
