Trattoria Basiloco Byron Bay — Restaurant in Byron Bay

Disappointed.

The entrées were great. We ordered the rare beef (very nice, but could been served with a couple of wedges of lemon to drizzle over it) and we ordered the caprice salad. The boccocini was nice, however they were very stingy with the tomatoes and crusted bread that accompanied the cheese.

Next the main... this is where it all went down hill... BIG TIME.

Our youngest child got the children's pasta bolangse. Now kids meals are cheap-ish but one tea spoon of meaty sauce is a bit stingy. I doubt it would have been 5 star mince so I'm sure they could have been a bit more generous and still turned over a profit.

Our middle boy got the lasagna which was full of nutmeg and just smelt weird. I swapped it with my dish (the marinara) and found it to be totally unpalatable. The serving size was fair.

Our oldest boy got the meatballs... again a stingy portion and should have been called meat marbles. He ate them but liked the Ikea meatballs better.

My wife and I got the marinara and WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT !!!! DO NOT ORDER THIS DISH. It shouldn't be named marinara. It had ONLY ONE cut up bug (the bug was indeed very good quality) and what I believe was tinned or frozen muscles. They smelt and tasted horrible. No other type of seafood. No prawns, fish, calamari, scallops etc. The sauce was NON EXISTENT. Usually there is a tomato, creamy or oil based sauce with some herbs and spices e.g garlic. So after eating a bit of bug the next mouthfull was basically a mouthful of plain pasta....thank you very much.

Anyway we paid and left and as we left the manager saw us off and asked how our dinner was. I was tempted to do the usual and just say fine, but the food was so terrible that I just had to tell him the truth. I told him the marinara was VERY deficinet on seafood variety and he said it was a bug and pasta dish (which is fine, but dont advertise it as "marinara" and in the description say "seafood ragout"). I then bought up the muscles and how I believed they were tinnned etc in which he said they were fresh. Well EVERY other restaurant keeps the muscles in the shell and there were not only NOT in the shell, but were much smaller and smellier.

Overall, I would not recommend this restaurant. A bit all over the...

My partner and I were excited to try the food here. Unfortunately we left extremely disappointed. Rushed and rude staff, uncomfortable seating and a very very rocky table.

We ordered the lamb skewers and they were okay at best, and the lamb ragu.

The pasta in the lamb ragu was completely under cooked, as soon as I bit into it I could see the pasta was white and raw. I instantly said to the waiter it's undercooked and she needs to take it back to the kitchen to show the chef, she refused and said it's how they always cook it and it's Al dente, I said actually no it's not I'm a qualified chef and it is not cooked. She got super weird and walked away, would not give eye contact.

15 minutes later I got her attention and said take it to the kitchen the pasta is raw and I'm not paying for this, she was super angry and strange about it and said fine don't pay for the pasta. The panacotta was tasteless and the berry's were extremely sour, the sauce was splashed all over the plate in a non asthetic abstract painting type of way.

When we went to pay the red wine she recommended was very expensive 20$+ and not great. Also rude and gaslight us into saying " fresh pasta takes longer to cook and sometimes tastes different, and can often be harder and whiter inside" - from a chef this is absolutely not true. It was 10000% not fresh made pasta. Fresh pasta cooks very fast and should not be harder or white inside.

Overall just trash food. The lamb ragu sauce just tasted like beef stock and carrot and lamb was just standard home...

4day weekend, January in Byron B was great for 4 reasons. The beaches, markets, great friends and finding a great place to eat diner. Rarely do we eat Italian in the US, and typically we avoid gluten, and my wife is vegetarian. We like quality food, fresh veggies and meats at a fair price, with good service. Basilico didn’t disappoint, we end up here three times in four days, twice for diner, and once for appetizers and drinks, each time it was new and refreshing. Byron just doesn’t have many places like this. Atmosphere, simple, clean and they seem to pay attention to details. The first day, we had amazing salads, a wood fired pizza and even pasta with seafood bursting with spicy flavors. Last night we shared pizza with veggies like fresh butternut squash and spinach, basil that I couldn’t stop eating. The eggplant parmesan had this amazing baked cheese on top, and the handmade gnocchi was probably the best we had ever had. It was so tasty I wished the others hadn’t liked it too. The serves helped us pair the food with the right wine, and despite it being high season we got served well each time. Just remember if you come in December and January don’t expect for any place to slow down and mingle, even though you could tell this place wanted to many times. We cant wait to come back and taste a new...