Pilloni Restaurant — Restaurant in Brisbane City

I was so enthusiastic to get to Pilloni after being such a huge fan of La Lupa and the intrigue of the Sardinian cuisine!

Fire-powered food is slowly but surely becoming a popular niche amongst the Brisbane dining scene (Agnes topping the lot) - and Pilloni is a fantastic competitor.

We were so impressed by the freshness of the natural oysters, as well as the refreshingly innovative “parsley oil, fermented carrot gel and bottarga dressing” oysters. Great combination!

Moreover, the standouts were, without a doubt, the charred octopus and Culurgiones. The octopus was the best i’ve ever had (and i’ve had a lot of octopus)! It was tender, buttery and perfectly accompanied by the potato foam.

As for the culurgiones - how could you go wrong with pasta dumplings in a pecorino and tomato sauce. So very satisfying.

Though I want to applaud Pilloni, being a new restaurant - there were a variety of flaws that I would not normally excuse for an establishment.

Our booking was for 7.45. We were not seated until 8.20. So incredibly grateful for the complimentary snacks they gave us when we were seated - but during our wait time we felt ignored by the bar staff. It was only the two of us with a pair of two other men at the bar stools… to have been acknowledged would have made the atmosphere feel slightly more hospitable.

When we were finally seated in the beautiful restaurant (really do love the interior design here) - we had to ask for our menus. I will admit it was probably my own fault for some of our poor choices when it came time to order. The chickpea crisps did not have the notes of truffle I was hoping for, nor the texture variety that should have come from the cream and crisp shell.

When our dishes came, the shisito peppers were served without the ricotta. Luckily, our waiter noticed before I said anything and returned with the cheese on top. It was a side dish that lacked umph. Where was the almond cream? and the ‘smokiness’ of the ricotta?? Next time I will just get the carrots. My bad!

Overall, for a new restaurant, Pilloni shows a lot of potential! I wanted so desperately to provide 5 stars but the service definitely needs polishing. I read another review stating they would give 3-stars if they weren’t sympathetic… I agree.

Can’t wait to come back for some meatier mains… and perhaps a larger serving of the octopus....

Nice food, beautifully presented. Some misses, but overall great. Would absolutely come back. Took me by surprise as I had a few people previously report that the food was good, but not great. So I wasn’t expecting anything special but nah I reckon they just ordered the wrong things so I’ll tell you what I thought.

Foccacia w the bottarga dip, absolute yes. Very strong flavour, umami, one of the better bottarga dips/butters w bread that I’ve had. This is coming from someone who always has bottarga in her fridge ready to go. Must order.

Prawns, yes. Order this, we got multiple plates and immediately ordered more. From memory kinda pricey as it’s $15 each prawn or something like that but it’s worth it as it’s yummy

Oysters, nothing special. Skip!

Octopus! A highlight! So tender. Loved the potato foam under it. A true standout and imo must be ordered.

kangaroo tartare, Smokey but not much else. Erm can skip this one. It’s missing something extra to make it great.

Frattau (that thin layered looking thing): no. Very bland. A miss. We ordered 3 plates minimum of every dish and this one.. no one finished 😓

Malloreddus (Pasta w sausage that looks like little worms): the waitress recommended this and wow it was beautiful! Pork and beef I believe. I loved this. Would go back to order it.

Culurgiones: sad, bland dumplings. It was a mistake to order 3 plates of this. Very mediocre. I much prefer the rosmarino ones.

Ron eye on the bone: nice but very fatty. They cooked it well though and it was tender, I wasn’t mad. Beefy flavour and umami was pretty decent for a MB4-5 grade.

potato as a side was ok. Can skip

would recommend the creamy leeks as a side to the steak, was noice.

would recommend the cocktails here, very nice. They had an excellent wine selection too.

no comment on desserts as I apparently over ordered for the table and no one could fit in dessert apparently. Sad.

My verdict: I’d come back for sure. There’s plenty of options on the menu that I’d happily be...

• UPDATE * Andrea called expressing his apologies for our previous experience, he explained the situation and genuinely cared about my experience. He offered me a $100 to try Pilloni again. On our second experience here, everything was top notch from the service to the food. Once again, the charred octopus and oysters are a must get for entree. We also got the seafood of the day this time and was genuinely so impressed by how well each ingredient was cooked, you can tell that they respected every single piece of quality produce that was on the plate and the sauce that went with it was to die for. The rabbit dish was also sooo delicious, it was cooked to perfection and we were encouraged to eat with our hands which I loved. Since I loved the uni pasta so much last time I ordered it again, the flavours were still awesome but the pasta was undercooked and I normally like my pasta quite al dente. Lastly dessert 😍, the mandarin mille-feuille was immaculate.

1st experience: We dined at Pilloni to celebrate a birthday. Overall, the food was very balanced and well thought out. I’d highly recommend getting the succulent prawns, oysters and lamb chops. With regards to service, some were incredible while others were lack lustre. The biggest disappointment to the night was that, by the time we wanted to order dessert we were informed that we cannot order it as unfortunately the next table were here waiting. We had to wait for a while in between courses (which we totally didn’t mind doing so at all). However, that resulted in an incomplete dining experience. Towards the end of the night, it just felt as though hurry up and get out as the next guests were here. We were expecting to be looked after, but that unfortunately fell short. I’d still recommend others to try this restaurant and would love to come back again due to the yummy food. However, I believe that there are some time management and staff training issues that could be improved for a more well rounded...