Bruno's Italian Restaurant & Take-Away — Restaurant in Lightning Ridge

For those who don't want to read a novel: Believe the other recent reviews. We thought perhaps there was a busy period that resulted in the long waits, but they are quite accurate still and we regret not paying attention to their warnings. From what I can tell, this restaurant is lovely when there's enough staff to handle orders, and take-away is probably excellent, but the volume and popularity of the restaurant has exceeded their ability to keep up for dine-in.

Pros: The atmosphere of the restaurant is genuinely very comfy and nice. The dining area is large enough not to feel cramped, but not so large as to be echoing or too loud. The view of the kitchen is a lot of fun to watch as staff buzz in and out making pizzas and attending to their other tasks. We were quite happy to sit and wait for the first half hour, after which things started to get bumpy. The food that was made properly was quite good (gnocchi al gorgonzola, salads). Drink service was prompt upon ordering. Table service staff were polite and attentive when necessary.

Cons: We made a booking and upon arrival were told someone would "be with us in a minute" by at least three waitstaff as they passed taking on other tasks. We were ignored for a solid ten minutes until another group with a booking arrived, at which point one waitress panicked and seated us all at the same time. The wait times listed in other reviews are very accurate. We waited upwards of an hour and a half between ordering and our food's arrival. We were in the restaurant a little over two hours in total. While we were waiting for our food, the waitresses came out twice to other tables to tell them that they had run out of dishes they'd ordered. Both of these other tables had been waiting about the same time as we had, and were only told their items were unavailable after an hour's wait. Another table was informed that the steak they ordered was cooked incorrectly, and it was the last of that cut available. They took the steak regardless, likely because they were as hungry as we were. One member of our table had his meal delayed by "several minutes" longer due to a "misread" in the kitchen. We're not exactly sure what this meant, but the result was that the chicken parmigiana he received was not actually a chicken parmigiana in any way. I suspect someone turned the fryers off early, because the head chef was quite agitated and brought the last few dishes out herself amidst numerous apologies. The dish received was two pieces of grilled chicken, topped with eggplant and a watery red sauce. Not a single crumb of breading or parmesan in sight. At this point, we knew if we complained, he'd either have to leave with no food, or we'd be waiting another hour, so we just hurriedly finished our meals and left. He reported that what he received tasted fine, but certainly was not what he'd expected when he ordered. The final straw was at the cashier's stand, where the woman who had served our drinks joked that we just "had to add a $50 tip and we're all set" while offering the credit card machine. Normally this kind of joke would be fine and probably result in a smaller tip as a result, but after waiting over an hour for food that was pretty poorly made, it was rather tone-deaf...

Wow really great service here! Came here with my parents, mum had just got here and left her bag on the coach that came from Dubbo. Staff were so so lovely and helpful, with each staff member being helpful. They contacted the bus driver eventually, through another person, and we were told the bag was found and the driver would be in touch. Never had staff be so helpful, like, ever. Maybe it is that small town hospitality. 5/5

Onto the food. We ordered the gnocchi, penne arrabiata and spaghetti marinara. The penne was nice but nothing amazing. The gnocchi was cooked perfectly with a perfect soft ratio of potato to flour, and although the sauce was rich and cheesy, it was a too salty for my parents, so if salty isn't your thing maybe skip that dish. I loved it though, despite it being a tad salty, but parents weren't a huge fan. 4/5

Must say the spaghetti marinara was pretty amazing, spaghetti cooked perfectly, as with all the other pasta in the other dishes, seafood tasted fresh and flavoursome, sauce delicious. 5/5

Prices; are decent, in Sydney this would be a gem. Also, don't like bashing much, but also visited to the bistro for Italian among other things. Prices are similar at Brunos and but brunos was...

I rarely put a review up, but this was appalling and disgusting. We went off peoples google reviews for this restaurant especiallyadvertising woodfire pizzas.....big mistake!! We booked for 6.10pm on a Tuesday night. It took 1 1/2 hours for our food to arrive (we ordered 1x penne bolognaise and 2x pizzas). Other people had the same experience of having to wait over 1 hour and left (we were near the front counter so we heard all of the conversations). Food was terrible: the pasta was terribly salty (we had 2 mouthfuls out of hunger and couldn't eat the rest-we sent it back to the kitchen).🤢 The pizzas were just as bad. The capriccosia they forgot the olives and we left 1/2 of one pizza and ate most of the other out of hunger.

*we stopped past the ampol to buy a roast beef sandwich (which we should have done in the 1st place).

To the owners of bruno's, don't seat customers if you're inundated with food orders, and the "chefs" should be trying the food before sending it out (the pasta tasted as if a 10yr old had tried to cook it and accidentally poured in the...