Onesta Cucina — Restaurant in Bowral

I ordered the Gnocchi with lamb and rosemary ragu'. The gnocchi were soft and firm like authentic home made gnocchi should be, so 10/10 for that. The lamb ragu was mediocre, the flavour was ruined by the taste of mutton fat, and this is not how authentic Italian ragu' should taste like. Table bread was nice quality and fresh. They describe their cuisine as "authentic italian" - it is not. They need to rebrand the food type to "revised Italian cuisine" to avoid further disappointed customers. I had the sticky date pudding (not Italian) for dessert and left half of it uneaten. I am a dessert freak and ALWAYS finish my dessert!! Not this time. The quality of the pudding was rubbery and synthetic, perhaps made from a commercial packet mix?? The accompanying vanilla ice cream was also synthetic and I'm certain it's never seen a drop of dairy milk - very artificial and disappointing. Tiramisu' was also on the dessert menu but I avoided it because I had a feeling it would not have been "authentic Italian" so went with sticky date as a safer choice (not). I would not have been so harsh in my review if they hadn't been so pretentious in describing the quality of their food as "authentic Italian cuisine". The decor could do with a refresh. Service was good but seemed a little rushed (short staffed perhaps) but they did their best to...

A disappointing end to Valentine’s Day. I had been waiting for so long to attend this lovely restaurant, We were greeted and sat by a lovely waitress and then had our drink order taken by another smiling helpful waitress. My husband and I read through the menu whilst waiting for our drinks. Only to be addressed by an older male waiter. He didn’t greet us, just asked if we were done and ready to order. He barely addressed me and spoke to my husband. When I asked for my entree to come with my husbands main it was an incredulous thought. I had had a menu tasting at work that day and was still full. I did however want to dine and enjoy an evening with my husband. What my husband ordered was out, as we were told when the waiter came back, instead of giving my husband the menu to choose something else he just said the chef reccomends the beef cheeks would you like that, I said could you please give us a moment and my husband will choose something else. He chose the lamp rump and was told how it came. My husband at this point didn’t care what he ate even if he didn’t eat it. We really were just ready to leave. Every other person there is lovely, and helpful and don’t make you feel like a burden. The food was delicious. And had I not had that waiter, I would...

I was not going to write this review as I am not in the habit of taking time to make other’s lives difficult… however, after informing the restaurant on an answer machine that I suffered incredibly bad food poisoning for the entire evening until morning after my meal, I received a return call from the owner. He immediately put me in the position of either not telling the truth, or confusing vomiting and diarrhea for 5 hours after eating at his establishment …. with possibly something else. He questioned the duration of the time I fell ill after dining, and explained he was ‘baffled’ as to what happened, and filled the conversation with reasons as to why it was virtually impossible for my experience to be valid. Although Costa added he hoped I was feeling better, I was made feel like I was in the wrong for calling!! … crazy, very rude and arrogant … you KNOW when you have food poisoning, a simple sorry would have done the trick, but ‘sorry’ was strategically avoided to presume innocence. Pretty upsetting experience. I must say bad vibe when I booked, and in agreement with another review here concerning the brashness of the service. The young guy who looked after our table was absolutely charming - and navigated the hierarchy...