After the Cardiff Wine Buyers Club’s first BYO dinner outing, at La Dolce Vita, back in July, we have been on the look out for places in Cardiff where corkage is offered (preferably at a reasonable – ish price and without restrictions on bottle numbers per table/person)

Asador 44 (at £25 a bottle, which warrants bringing out the bigger guns wine wise) was considered, but we decided to pencil that in as a December venue, whereas Silures and Nomad (at £45 a standard bottle and £90 for a magnum) were most certainly not (totally outrageous corkage charges, in my humble opinion, and I honestly don’t know why they just don’t say we don’t do corkage as those prices are in effect saying exactly that).

After a bit of two and fro-ing I happened upon the fact that Stefano’s in Pontcanna (it is actually in Pontcanna, rather than Greater Pontpangea) offered a corkage charge of £10 a bottle. There is also no bottle limit per table or person unlike Gaucho’s Monday fee corkage offer, which is ruined by a ludicrous limit of half a bottle per person (and pretty indifferent, yet pricey, food in my experience).

Stefano’s is, therefore, offering what amounts to a very reasonable corkage deal in the Cardiff market.

It is a bit of an oddity, Stefano’s, being on a very fertile strip restaurant wise with the likes of Heaneys, Uisce and Ember all on the same road and Gorse, Thomas by Tom Simmons and Sonder in pretty close proximity. All uber trendy, whereas Stefanos seems like a bit of a blast from the past.

As a result, I (and I suspect many others) pass it on the way to the likes of Heaney’s without giving it much thought  If I am honest, I thought it had closed a while back (during the plague).

The menu is slightly strange one to me, with the central concept being that of piatti piccolo, in effect small plates.

but the items on the menu being quite traditional Italian dishes such as lasagna where a more fulsome portions is the general rule. A small plate lasagna just seems a little counterintuitive to me.

Now I don’t mind the concept of small plates per se with it offering (in theory) the chance to explore a menu a bit more, but it is all too often used as an excuse to reduce portion sizes without an appropriate reciprocity in terms of pricing. The bill, as a general rule, seems to come as a bit of a surprise/shock when you are eating al a carte small plates.

I will apologise in advance for the pictures of the food (which don’t do the place justice). Firstly it was a rather jolly wine filled evening (we had kicked off proceedings at the Bottle Shop in Pontcanna, which was gratifyingly doing a roaring Thursday night trade).

and, secondly, the “Don’t eat stuff before a picture is taken” etiquette was quickly abandoned/roundly ignored. This, I think, was actually no bad thing!

With 4 of us, (the missing member had swanned off to New York for a jolly, the poor dear!) a more sharing format was better suited to our needs and that was our starting point regarding ordering.

We, of course, took advantage of the corkage offer and bought our own wine

and a rather fine selection it made covering Spain, Italy, South Africa and Germany.

First up were 2 sets of their charcuterie boards (£15.95),

Nice mix of meats, with good prosciutto, coppa/capocollo and salami. The star of the show, however, was that oh so underrated meat that is mortadella. 

This one was lovely and creamy, with a touch of porky sweetness.  It really is such an undervalued cold cut in this country (I blame the hideous teddy bear slop).

Good grissini and olives all added nicely to the mix of what was a significantly better effort than La Dulce Vita’s rather pedestrian offering at our last dinner. My only real criticism was the bed of rather dull lettuce it all sat on.

With the charcuterie, we opened the two whites wines

Both of these were excellent, with the Sicilian Anthilis offering lovely aromatics on the noses with beeswax, jasmine and honeyed aromas and a nice hit of stone fruit and citrus on the palate. Very refreshing stuff.

The Albillo was a somewhat different beast, with it reminding me of a baked apple pie, with cinnamon and vanilla, on the nose. Bruised orchard fruits, but in a good way, and ginger spice were other comments. Different, but rather nicely so.

Next up were polpette (£10.95),

and arancini (£10.45).

Both of these were good, if a touch spenny (and why do these sort of dishes always coming in 3s when the majority of people eating out do so as a party of 2 or 4).

The polpette has a good textured and flavour (nicely seasoned)  and a tangy tomato sauce worked well with the pork and beef balls.

The (quite mini) arancini were a mixed trio with me only trying a gorgonzola filled number. Nicely crisp shell and an interior of not overcooked rice infused with the creamy, tangy cheese. Very moreish and a shame there was only one for me.

In hindsight, the fulesomeness of charcuterie board would have lent itself to having just one, with an extra order of the polpette and arancini.

On to “mains” with the menu and pricing suggesting it followed the small plate theme, but actually provided for decent portion sizes based on what we had already had.

Three of us went for the special (at around £18.95 – quite punchy pricing for what was billed as a small plate) which was a tagliatelle with a venison ragu

Really enjoyed this, with the pasta cooked so it still retained a touch of bite (as it should) and the ragu replete with tender chunks of slightly gamey venison. Nice richness, with a touch of acidity, to the sauce that bound it all together. Portion wise it was actually just about right for me.

No idea what purpose the rather lonely rosemary sprig served, to be honest.

One of our party had the risotto zafferano with sausage (£16.50). He seemed to enjoy it, but it did look (no photo) a touch light on the saffron front to me.

We had, by this stage, moved on to the reds

with a South African cinsault and an Italian negroamaro.

The former was my wine of the night with lovely aromas of red fruit (strawberries to me) as well as gentle herbal notes. A nimble little number at 12.5°, it had a surprisingly level of intensity, a lovely refreshing acidity and silky tannins. Really good wine this.

The negroamaro was a brooding beast of a wine, (Graticciaia is known as the amarone of the South), with the grapes being dried on mats in the sun operating to really concentrate things on the aroma and taste front.

Big rich blobs of black cherry, boozy kirsch and dark chocolate (think liquid black forest gateau), we labelled it the Neg/Meg (as it was a monster of a wine). To me it was all a bit too much, resulting in it being (despite me bringing it) my least favourite wine of the night. Still good, but in an otherwise light on their feet field it felt a little leaden footed. If the cinsault was a tap shoe, the negroamaro was a size 14 nobnail boot.

On to desserts, I went classic and had the tirimisu (others had the cheesecake and affogato).

A decent rather than spectacular rendition (if I was being picky, the coffee and booze could have been a bit more pronounced), it did go very well with the dessert wine I bought.

This 25 year old German eiswein (grapes are picked frozen, so whilst the water freezes the sugars do not so you get super concentrated grape juice) was a bugger to open, with the core of the cork disintegrating when our waiter tried to open it with a conventional corkscrew (I have a nifty prong gadget that is great for getting old corks out, which saved the day), but was certainly well worth the effort.

Despite its slightly alarming brown hue, this wine was absolutely lovely with full on flavours of candied lime and orange, which were almost marmalady, but still retaining a gorgeous freshness that meant (despite its sweetness) it wasn’t cloying at all. No signs of oxidation, despite its age and the dodgy cork.

Remarkable stuff and at only 6.5° abv. very light on its feet. A rather fine end to a rather fine evening, I thought.

Dessert wines are a passion of mine and I think unfairly neglected by the general populus (my death row/death bed meal would include a glass or two of Royal Tokaji Essencia 1993, after which I think I would very happily slip this mortal coil).

The verdict

Another successful outing of the Cardiff Wine Buyers Club, with good wine, good company and good food.

I rather feel that Stefano’s flies a tad under people’s radar, with (to my knowkedge) no real chatter about the place (not least from the “best evah” brigade). It ain’t Istagramaaaaazingable, but to be honest who cares if it is or not. The key question should always be is the food any good, not can I take a selfie using the mirror in the bog!

The food may be traditional trattoria fare (nothing wrong with that) rather than anything fancy-schmancy, but it is all done well and it is decent value for money. The corkage offer of £10 a bottle was very much the icing on the already nicely baked cake.

We paid (for 4 of us) just shy of £217,

so under £55 a head (including tip, service was very good, and corkage ) with a very nice selection of food and wine.

I would posit that the wine alone if bought in a restaurant (applying the standard UK 3 x mark up rates) would have been in the region of £450. Cumulating the retail prices of the wines (a sunk cost any way as they were not bought specifically for the evening) and the corkage cost meant we probably saved about £250, which is not to be sniffed at.

That to me is a very good deal and if you are looking for a decent, traditional, good value Italian you could do a lot worse than this place. Add the corkage deal and it becomes a pretty attractive proposition for a night out.

Open Mondays too, which is a bonus for those who only get that as a day off.

Worth noting that the Bottle Shop in Pontcanna is handily placed, just up the road, for picking up a bottle (they have a good selection covering pretty much all price brackets) to take to this place (it is good for a prink too).

The next “Club” jolly is a weekend in London for the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter in November. Looking forward to that, with Parsons booked for lunch on the Friday and the promise of some very good wine on the Saturday (and a slow recovery on the Sunday).

The details

Address:  14 Romily Crescent, Pontcanna, Cardiff, CF11 9NR.

Website: https://www.stefanos.co.uk/

Opening hours: