IL Lago Italian Restaurant - Mango Hill, QLD — Restaurant in Greater Brisbane

IL Lago Italian Restaurant is situated in Capestone Village. With a kitchen at the front, bar and register in the middle with fully stacked bar, with seating indoors and outdoors overlooking the lake. It’s a nice little spot in the evening to enjoy the lake view and have a feed.

The staff were on the ball, sense of urgency the way hospitality staff should be. The waitresses were friendly and accurate in their duties. And spot on service to a good standard.

Recommend making a reservation to avoid disappointment as it was a busy little joint fully booked out on Friday evening. Probably best spot would be outdoor seating!

What we ordered: To start - arancini balls with home-made Napoli sauce. Very delicious. They weren’t too big and not too small… just right! A tomatoeey cheesy rice filling surrounded by perfectly cooked crunchy crumb. Cooked perfectly with Napoli sauce for dipping 🍅 I rate them! Only downfall is there’s only 3 and when u share them someone gets more the. The other person 😂 but I think if u asked for another one, they’d probably cater to that, they seemed very accommodating.

Mains - wood fired meat lovers pizza and gnocchi in a cheesy sauce with Italian sausage. Hubby and I shared as we usually do with Italian food, plus this is a great way to have conversation flowing for a married Couple… talking about the flavours etc. the pizza 🍕 base was tasty with tomato sauce base, real sliced ham, sausage, pepperoni and drizzled bbq sauce. The flavours were all there and hubby thought this was a winner. The gnocchi was amazing. Light fluffy potato pillows smothered in light cheesy sauce with chunks of Italian sausage throughout and a little spring onion for colour. It usually comes with mushrooms, but I find them yucky so I asked to have it without, hence accomodating as mentioned above. The sauce was just right, lovely smooth consistency and not over powering cheesy flavours… very more-ish!!

Dessert- home made traditional tiramisu and Panna cotta with berry coulis. Yummm, both just so yum 🤤 the tiramisu was light and fluffy and just the right amount of coffee flavour (at least for me) and not too much cream. Very generous size and no shortage of chocolate dust. The pannacotta was really good too. Served in a cute little jar, was a little quirky. The berry coulis was Devine and tasted like it was meant to be paired with their creamy well set panna cotta.

Hubby and I are fairy judgemental when it comes to food and I have to say, the waitress took our drinks order and food order the drinks and food came out quickly, the waitress checked to see if everything was good, they were observant with clearing our table and not leave empty plates for too long, offered dessert 🍮 and as we walked out we were thanked by the waitresses and kitchen cooks and I just found this to be a warm, welcoming space for Dinner. No Complaints here. Well...

I think our recent experience at this restaurant warrants feedback. We had booked for a table for 5 inside as we have a very pregnant daughter in law who did not want to sit on the cold rainy balcony.

We arrived and to our surprise there was no table reserved for us, in spite of receiving confirmation of the reservation on the previous day. So, we had to sit outside and were ushered to a table with 4 place settings, after a couple of attempts we managed to get extra cutlery etc.

Drinks and food were ordered, and the food was OK. It took some time, but it was a Saturday night, and we assumed they were busy. We finished the food and waited and waited for someone to clear the table and to see if we wanted dessert.

After several attempts of getting anyone's attention (even though there were 2 waitresses chatting in the doorway) we finally received the dessert menus and promptly ordered. Plates and empty glasses were still on the table. After 30 minutes a waitress appeared from somewhere and asked if we wanted desserts. We informed her that they were ordered over 30 minutes ago. 10 minutes later a different waitress advised that our dessert order had not been registered.

Enough was enough so we paid the bill and left. So right from the initial booking this night was a fiasco. Food is OK but it is difficult to rate the service because there wasn't any. We...

Booked in for dinner based on the reviews found for this place only to leave enraged.

We made a booking, walked in and they could not find our booking. They asked the chef if they could grant us a table, to which he was very nice and said of course have a seat. The server seemed disappointed by this.

The server raced to our table, dropped the menus and walked away. We were a 2pax seated at a table for 6 but whatever.

She came back promptly with a bottle of water, with no glasses and said “I’ll be back with your glasses”. Spoiler alert, she did not come back with our glasses after waiting for 15mins!

While waiting for our order to be taken, we noticed a cockroach under the table, which further soured what was 15 MINUTES OF BEING IGNORED BY EVERY SERVER. In that time, we could see others trying to wave down a server, only to be told “be there in a minute”. Spoiler alert, the server did not come back.

We also saw people GET UP TO GET THEIR OWN CUTLERY AND NAPKINS.

Summary - we waited 15 MINUTES FOR NOBODY TO SAY HELLO, NOBODY TO TAKE OUR DRINK ORDER, NOBODY TO TAKE OUR FOOD ORDER.

Wish we could have tried the food to give a proper review, best part was the kitchen staff seemed nice and friendly - everyone else, (front of house staff who should be the MOST friendly!) didn’t seem to want...