Italian Street Kitchen Newstead — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Like its sister restaurant in the West End, this is a popular, well run joint in the Gasworks Plaza in Newstead. It works well on every level from a cool, relaxed and laid back ambience to fine food and efficient, polite service.

My wife and I dined on a Wednesday night, and the place was about half full, so it was good to see a decent turnout even on a weeknight.

We started with two drinks, a beer and a cocktail. We skipped entrees and headed straight for the main courses: I chose the lamb ragu casarecce. That’s a pasta dish with shredded lamb, in a red wine and horseradish sauce. The pasta was nice and soft and the lamb was melt-in-your-mouth tender, finely sliced into easily digestible pieces and topped with a creamy sauce. My wife went for the garlic prawn spaghetti. It was smothered in a tangy arrabbiata sauce. The prawns were fresh and tasty but there could have been a few more of them. Meals were neatly presented to the table on stylish white crockery.

As for the cost, nothing better illustrates this country’s hyperinflationary crisis than the cost of restaurant meals these days. They are now in the stratosphere, and it’s not entirely the fault of the restaurant industry either. If one wants to look for culprits, look no further than the govt and the reserve bank for fuelling this crisis. We had two drinks and two pasta dishes. No entrees and no dessert. That was 86 pesos! Luckily TheFork came to our rescue with a 50 rewards voucher to bring the cost back to 36. But without some deal or other, eating out is rapidly becoming unaffordable.

The service, as with I.S.K. in West End, was flawless. Wait staff are well trained, smartly turned out and know their job. On arrival we were greeted by the friendly maître d who made us feel welcome and gave us the option of where we wanted to sit. Our table waitress was a pretty young Italian lady who was super polite, patient and efficient. Orders were quickly taken and the drinks and the meals came out, without delay, in the correct order. These guys didn’t miss a beat. And in what I thought was a nice touch, when my wife accidentally knocked over her drink, they replaced it free of charge. They also gave us a small plate of olives to munch on while we waited for our meals.

I.S.K., again mirroring its sister restaurant in West End is a spacious, airy and light space, with an interior design that’s a sight to behold. It’s intense, with lime green walls, hung with dozens of pictures. Ornaments and knick-knacks are everywhere on high shelves There’s masses of greenery and plants hanging from the ceiling. The bar behind the front counter is packed to the roof with colourful bottles. Lighting is strong and the wooden furniture is sturdy and comfy. Huge windows to the one side allow light to stream in and the open plan kitchen behind the glass lets you see what’s going on behind the scenes. That all works well to create a fun, lively and bright atmosphere.

There are no toilets in the restaurant, so you need to step outside and use the centre’s toilets which are just around the corner. There are plenty of cubicles and they’re clean and well provisioned with soap, but the feeble hand dryers are a waste of time. They hardly worked and should be replaced by more modern and effective ones.

There is two hours free parking in the centre’s car park, but two hours isn’t enough, especially if you want to have a wander around the Gasworks Plaza afterwards or do some shopping. After your two hours are up, it becomes exorbitantly expensive to stay on, at about 13 per half hour. You certainly don’t want to be paying that when you’re already shelling out a large amount for your meals. Patrons who dine at one of the restaurants at the centre and can show a receipt, should be allowed at least another hour of free parking.

But if you want to bring your pooch, there's free and unrestricted "pooch parking"...

Rating 1-5 Food: From 5 to 1 Presentation: 4 Ambience: 5 Service: 2 Price: 5

1st and 2nd visit: Great food and lovely staff.

3rd visit: It's hard to find good restaurants, and before last Saturday - Italian Street Kitchen was one of the few good places for us.

It was a busy night so I understand the decrease in the level of customer service, specifically by the lady at the cashier.

She didn't inform me of the additional cost if I use a credit card. I know this is normal but you still need to inform guests. She told me the total cost was $88 but the actual charge was $89.14. She didn't ask if I wanted an invoice and I had to come back and request for it. Again, this is mandatory.

FOOD: -The Diavola (pizza) was amazing but it quickly went downwards after that. -There was something wrong with the sauce of the spaghetti with meatballs. The color of the marinara was not as bright as before and it was too creamy for an italian red sauce pasta. -The carboara was awful we barely touched it. The sauce didn't penetrate the thick pasta. It tasted like watered down cream with salt.

I informed the nice waitress, I think her name was Florentina (or something like that) of our dining experience. I explained what happened and she apologised. I really hope she informed their chef about it.

Guest loyalty is won by being CONSISTENT both in the food you serve and quality of customer service.

I left the fork and knife on a cross pattern in an almost untouched plate of carbonara. That's a dead giveaway to show how we felt. If the waitress was paying attention, she should have asked questions right...

Really disappointing. I’ve been wanting to eat here for some time so when my parents came to Brisbane for the weekend I suggested we come here. The service was incredibly slow to even be seated. When we were seated we got put right in front of the kitchen so it was incredibly hot and uncomfortable, there didn’t seem to be any air conditioning and when I looked at the vents, it almost put me off my food. The waitress who took my order was incredibly condescending when I went to order burrata, she told me “it’s just cheese, it’s very small”… I’m well aware of that… anyway I decided that $23 for “very small” burrata wasn’t ideal, so asked for arancini balls, to which she told me that was also a very small serving, once again, I really didn’t care, I just wanted to eat. Anyway the food came all at odd times, we had to keep asking for our drinks to be brought to us, once everyone else had finished their food, I had to ask again about the truffle fries I ordered, once everyone had finished eating, our long awaited drinks came out. Overall quite disappointed with the service, the food left a lot to be desired as well to be honest, my partner ordered spaghetti which advertised it came with clams… it was just full of empty shells? Weird experience all round, probably wouldn’t bother coming back. Also might be worth getting someone out to clean your aircon vents, because they’re really off...