🍕48h Pizza e Gnocchi Bar - Elsternwick Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

Overpriced and unapPEAling

Where do we begin, we were running late for our 6.30 booking so we decided to call as a courtesy to let the restaurant know. The guy who picked up said they couldn’t find our booking- after a lot of back and forth they said we had made a booking at 6 (Our online reservation clearly said 6.30) after much confusion they said they would see us soon. Upon arrival we showed them the confirmation email and had a table saved for us.

Lamb sausage gnocchi. The gnocchi arrived with only 4 pieces of lamb sausage which probably only equated to 1/3 of a sausage. After questioning the amount of sausage I was given 3 extra stingy pieces.

Moving onto the worst part of the night- Mixed veggie pizza. You may ask yourself how does one stuff up a veggie pizza? Well, let me tell you.

Upon ordering we asked what vegetables were on the pizza and the waiter said, pumpkin, capsicum, mushroom, artichoke which sounded like a good combination. Fast forward to the pizza. We were given what looked like vegetable scraps that were meant for the compost bin were dumped onto our pizza. The pizza comprised of zucchini as thin as dental floss, transparently thin capsicum, wafer thin purple potato slices and PEAS. WHO PUTS PEAS ON PIZZA?!?! and the waiter never mentioned peas. We were completely baffled by this. There was also no pumpkin. Upon questioning the pumpkin they said they would grill us some pumpkin to put on our pizza, by that stage we were completely put off by everything especially the peas situation.

We ended up swapping our pizza for a margarita, which the waiter actually hesitated at first and told us we would be charged for the veggie pizza if we wanted to change it.

Overall a very underwhelming and overrated place that seems to be trying to cut corners left and right- just go to Crust instead- they know how to do a veggie pizza and won’t skimp on...

My friend and I arrived here at around 10.10pm. The first thing that the waiter said to us was "our kitchen us closing at 10.30pm". No good evening or welcome, nothing. We both ordered the house special, a tagliatelle with cured meat, saffron, fresh cream and zucchini flowers.

The pasta was undercooked, tasteless and very disappointing, served on a cold plate. When asked at the end if the meal if we had enjoyed it, I said "no" and proceeded to tell the waiter why. He said nothing and then tell no one. The Managaress noticed I had left a portion of my pasta and asked the same question and got the same answer. A few minutes later, she returned saying that the chef said the pasta was cooked properly for the type of pasta it was! I didn't argue. She offered us complementary dessert, which we declined.

During all of this staff were noisily rearranging furniture. Our waiter bumped into our table three times in the rush to clean up. That appeared more important.

We did not pay for our coffee and a liqouor at the end if the meal. Ibwascoffered as complimentary, but with poor grace and lacking a genuine apology. This made me feel distinctly uncomfortable.

Overall disappointing, indifferent and somewhat patronising staff. Not a pleasant experience. Would certainly not go there again. At $29 For a house special, it was overpriced and distinctly underwhelming. Not good at all.

The response from the restaurant basically agrees with what I said, then accuses me of painting a different picture? I reiterate, the pasta was chewy and tough. I know what al dente means and tastes like. It was tasteless, staff indifferent and as I said patronising. Disappointing that they have chosen to adopt a position where the...

Poor service - slower than a wet week, and out of stock menu items. Food ok, but I wouldn’t right home about it! Absolutely Not family friendly. Dined with my husband and two primary school aged kids. The service was woeful. Firstly only one other table with people on it in the restaurant. So we wanted to sit in the front near the window but was told no, we had to go it the back in the corner as there were bokings for the window tables. So we sat at the back in the corner. Water was brought to the table but took the waiter a good 20min to return to take our order. We ordered 3 pastas, chips and garlic bread. We ordered sparkling mineral water but were told they had run out. So ordered limonata but that too as well as the orange soft drink had run out. They had no soft drink at all. So ordered a juice for one of our kids. Took 30mins for the chips to be brought to the table and a further 1 hour long wait for 3 pasta!! In that time the waiter did not return to our table. After our meal it took 15mins to clear the finished dishes. We ordered dessert and one house red. During that 2hours, 3 different sittings were had at the table we wanted to sit at - all coffees, no meals. In fact they even split the tables into 2. There was no bookings for the window table, they just didn’t want children seen from the street. Upon leaving we were not asked how our $117 dining experience was or if we enjoyed our meals. But I offered some feedback re the extraordinary wait and the turn over of the window table we we not allowed to sit at. The waiter was rude and told us he did not want our feedback. The food was ok but the service was hopeless. We will not...