Rustica - Newcastle

If you want a romantic setting for your next date or in my case an anniversary, Rustica ticks the boxes.

Seriously delicious shoulder of lambFall apart tender meat, awesome roasted and spiced potatoes and lots of greens.

My partner and I came here for our anniversary after her dying to try this place for awhileSafe to say it lived up to the expectations we had.

The service is unobtrusive, friendly but they don't offer much in the way of what the food is about. We were a little confused by the menu but worked it out, there are tapas, plus larger meals, plus express lunch meals and so on. We chose to share two tapas as entrees and they were lovely, the soft delicious bread with oil and balsamic is a nice touch too, the mains, my partner had the salmon special and he said it was to die for, I had to the duck, it was probably the driest duck I have ever eaten, edible yes, but no I wouldn't order it again. The sides are huge, so only order one to share (wish the waitress had told us how big they were). The table next to us shared the lamb which looked beautiful. I think it is a lovely venue, nice friendly service, though not in any way silver service and the meals are usually lovely, I think I just chose the wrong thing....would I go back? I would, it is a lovely place. Word of warning though, there are many stairs to climb to get to it from street level.

My husband and I shared scallops and Aranchini entrees and we both had duck for mains. All the food was well presented and delicious. The atmosphere/service was friendly and casual and we had a lovely bottle of Sangiovese for a reasonable $33.