The Strand Cafe Restaurant — Restaurant in Adelaide

Dont be tricked by the word “Food fire pizza” on the menu. Though the wood fire oven is great for cooking meals, the luxury of a wood fire oven for a pizza in this cafe is a complete mislead and in fact it is a complete waste of a wood oven for izza when you cannot use this luxury to bake a proper wood oven pizza in the traditional way. Even Mama Carmelas electric oven pizzas are more delicious than The Strand wood oven pizzas.

The Strand pizza doughs are rolled flat and put in a tray (from what I could see) so their pizzas are no where near a proper wood oven pizza like Sicily or Fumo in adelaide which have the best wood fire pizzas.

If you go to The Strand, make sure you go there for anything but Pizzas. Puzzas here are pretty average and I prefer Mama Carmelas electric oven pizzas than The Strand. Its a waste of an oven. Though their other foods I am sure are delicious like their Gnocci Ragu was not bad actually. And saw the presentation of a few other dishes and they looked good.

It was a quiet Sunday night at the cafe (pretty typical for Adelaide sunday nights). Ordered my favorite Capricciosa pizza waiting fir a mouth watering wood oven pizza with hollow puffy crust and few burnt bubbles but I gave myself false hopes only emcountering a dish of normal cafe style flattened dough pizza and also to realize that mushroom is more exoensive than ham.

I asked for the ham to be removed but added mushroom and the bill shower $3.89 charged for the subtraction of meat and adding mushroom which did not make sense since I didnt ask for extra topping.

Not to mension that they were confused at first when the waitress took my order on a very quiet and mostly vacant night ordering Capricciosa and she mistakenly written Prosciutto and shortly after the second waiter was chatting with the puzza naker (overheard their conversation) and shortly after he cane to our table saying the the Prosciutto has no ham on it.

You could excpect a confusion or mistake on a very busy night when staff get overwhelmed and more vulnerable to make mistakes but not on a very dead night.

I think the owner has no idea and perhaps he should remove the term “from our wood oven” from the pizza menu as you set patrons expectation high then they get slapped with disappointment when the pizza arrives at their table.

I have been a pizza maker in the past and still making great pizzas at home and building my own wood oven so I am a pizza freak and been in slmost All adelaide top wood oven pizza restaurants. Yet I believe Mama Carmela’s electric conventional oven pizzas are better and tastier than The Strand. So dont be fooled by their puzza menu’s “PIZZA from our wood oven” unless you just like to eat pizza, anny pizza and not sure what a good pizza is. Then you’d probably fine Pedros pizza also very delicious (🤮). Believe me when I say woolied pizza breads are better than Pedros Pizzas.

There is no reason not to visit The Strand but if you are after a wood oven pizza, this is the last place to go to. Only if the owner realised it, he’d make a change and attract more people to his restaurant and generate more income. Should see hiw busy Sicily (Aldinga Beach) or Fumo (Glen Osmond Road) is on most nights.

Staff on the other hand were polite and table service was good apart from the poor attention when taking order, however it wasnt a big deal at all and was clarified after and I did not have the wrong food turning up so that was good.

My only feedback is to utilize the oven properly and learn to make italian style wood oven pizza while hou have the luxury and slso only charge for extra toppings not taking the gold off and charging for added silver (if you get the point)! I have just subtracted a more expensive ingredient and added a cheaper topping but ended up paying $3.89 for it. It is...

This was always a family favourite for many years as every time we went everything was absolutely perfect and always wowed by every aspect of the experience until my family took me here for my 31st birthday. The lady who was serving our table seemed very inexperienced and had to keep repeating to her our order. My partner and i both ordered a Atlantic salmon and for $35 each all we got was about 5 baby fried potatoes with a bit of rocket and a dry piece of salmon on top, highly disappointing when you can go to any restaurant in Adelaide and pay 28-29 dollars and it will more than likely be cooked alot better than this. Cmon guys, this is Adelaide, not Melbourne or Sydney although for $35 in Melbourne or Sydney you would probably have a perfectly cooked Salmon. My sister ordered a chicken salad for $28 and the chicken was so dry it was like chewing a towel. Probably the most disappointing thing was we shared a trio of dips which we have had many times before and has always been quite obvious it has been made in house, we were not so convinced this time. It looked like it was straight out of a packaged tub, but worse than that was i dont know what they put in the avocado dip and beetroot dip, they were so sour and bitter i almost gagged. In the end we did complain about the meal and they had an excuse for everything saying everyone else hasn't complained about the food or the same chefs who have cooked the food today have cooked it for the last 15 years. At the end of the day it was like an entirely different restaurant and not for the good, it did make it a little less painful the restaurant manager offering us a $50 voucher which will more than likely be the last time we come back unless they happen to wow us again.

UPDATE we returned here Friday 1st February to use the $50 voucher we received the last time we were here. I ordered medium rare steak of the day, what I received was definately not medium rare, rather it was well done, and rather fatty (seriously get your S$@t together!). We complained about the steak and how it was cooked, I then had to sit and watch my partner eat her dinner then she had to do the same when my meal was brought out again. My partner ordered the barramundi which was a bit so so, certainly no real effort put into the presentation on the plate, just slapped on so to speak, and the kipfler potatoes served with the barramundi were not seasoned, needless to say we will not be returning here again. Such a pity as this used to be a safe bet when going to the bay, as you would get a great meal with...

Have been coming here for years but after my experience last night I won’t be back again. I had my birthday dinner with 8 friends last night. I ordered a pizza and 3 vodka pineapples, when paying for my bill I looked at the screen. Pizza was $30 and 3 vodkas were $64! When I questioned the bill I was told that I was served “premium” vodka, which for one I did not ask for, and 2 the “premium” vodka I was being served was in fact Smirnoff Vodka after I asked the question. Which the staff then proceeded to tell me that Smirnoff and Grey Goose are both equal.

I continued to question the bill as there was also a $6-7 charge (can’t exactly remember the price) EXTRA ontop of the spirit aswell, Which when I also asked what juice it was the bartender then mentioned it was poured from a standard 2L juice from the supermarket.

The manager refused to come and talk to me and I overheard her saying “well that’s what she was being served so she needs to pay” very unprofessional.

I am sorry but I’m not going to pay for what you can premium alcohol when I didn’t specifically ask for it, or if you are going to serve me what you think is premium alcohol maybe you should offer it I’m assuming you overcharged me (and others on the table as I was the last to pay) because there were hardly other patrons in your restaurant and you obviously needed to make up your earnings for the night due to lack of bookings. I can guarantee you that our table of 9 will not be returning back to...