Eat Drink KL: Azzurro @ Pavilion

Friday, January 23, 2015

Azzurro @ Pavilion

This Italian restaurant is the latest venture by Urban Bar Concepts, which also runs the South American-themed La Boca Latino Bar & French-tinged Cafe De Paris in Pavilion. We liked those two earlier outlets, but Azzurro misses the mark for us.

 Azzurro's massive menu is meant to pay tribute to southern Italian traditions, with many seductive-sounding temptations such as polenta chips with Parmesan cheese & rosemary, served with salsa rossa tomato sauce (RM16 before taxes). But Azzuro falls short of transcending its setting - these chips lack character & charisma, tasting like what a shopping mall kitchen serves, not a classic trattoria. It's Italian cooking at its most efficient, not its most effervescent.

 We only scratched the surface of Azzurro's selection, but none of these inspired us to sink our teeth further. Not the stodgy gnocchi stained with gloppy gorgonzola sauce (RM31), hearty but heartless spinach-&-ricotta ravioli in overbearing tomato-&-basil sauce (RM32) or the confused mess of risotto with rosemary, pumpkin, cheese, chillies, mushrooms & truffle oil (RM35).

Pizza dough fritters rolled in sugar & cinnamon & teamed with Nutella (RM15) could either be totally worth the calories or a cause to look back on lunch with remorse - only one outcome is true. Note: This meal was back in September; every time we thought of writing about it, there seemed to be something else more encouraging to highlight.

 If you must though, Azzurro's affogato with pistachio gelato (RM15) is kinda cool. Italian-inspired cocktails are offered too, laced with the likes of limoncello & prosecco. Heaps of thought & effort have been poured into this restaurant's repertoire, making the gap between its ambition & its execution all the more inexplicable.

Azzurro
Level 2, Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur. Open 10am-10pm. Tel: 03-2148-8822

Check out the latest edition of Eat Drink KL: 100 Favourites, featuring 100 recommended restaurants for October-December 2014, including more than 30 new entries for this quarter. 
This eBook is available to read or download at this link: http://eatdrinkkl.cld.bz/2014D 
This link expires Jan. 24, 2015. Please check the newest blog entries after that for fresh links.

Stay up to date: The Eat Drink KL newsletter is sent by email to subscribers every Monday; it's the Klang Valley's foremost weekly round-up of new restaurant openings (even before they're featured on this blog), F&B promotions & other tasty tidbits.
Subscribe to Eat Drink KL Weekly for free via this following link: 
Note to subscribers on Gmail: The newsletter will be in the Promotions folder of your inbox.

Sausages to sambal. Muffins to marshmallows. Peanut butter to mango chutney. Cornflake ice cream to honey aloe yogurt. Lavender-laced lemonades to lychee-&-guava juices.
Eat Drink KL: Small Businesses, Huge Flavours is the first eBook to help customers navigate the diversity of independent F&B entrepreneurs who bake & boil in their own kitchens, offering some of Malaysia's finest, most fascinating food products.
This resource will be continuously updated with new listings: www.eatdrinkkl.publ.com/businesses