400 Gradi - Brunswick — Restaurant in Melbourne

Title: Terrible Experience - Avoid This Restaurant at All Costs

Where do we even begin? We decided to go out for a nice family Italian dinner, hoping for a pleasant evening, but what we got was one of the worst dining experiences we've ever had. It started with being seated at the back of the restaurant, right near the kitchen. This location seemed to signal to the staff that we didn’t matter, as we were crammed in and completely overlooked. We felt abandoned the entire time, with minimal attention from our server.

To kick things off, we ordered two Aperol Spritzes, only to be served what tasted like flat Prosecco. There was not much Aperol in the drink, which was a major disappointment. A bottle of sparkling water priced at $11… are you joking.

We then ordered the Cotoletta, which was shockingly small for its $42 price tag. It was barely the size of a palm, arrived with no garnish (just a lone wedge of lemon), and was so dry it felt like chewing cardboard. To add insult to injury, it didn’t even come with any sides.

Next, we ordered a steak, which was supposed to come with a side of chips. The steak itself was full of gristle and lacked any real flavor, to the point where we had to ask for salt just to make it edible. Imagine our shock when we found out that the chips weren’t included and were an extra $13 on top of the $45 we already paid for the steak. Outrageous!

The gnocchi was no better—clearly store-bought despite being advertised as homemade. And to make matters worse, we had to ask for Parmesan cheese. Shouldn’t that be a given at an Italian restaurant?

To top it all off, the pizza, which used to be the highlight of this restaurant, was far below the standard we remembered. What has happened to 400 Gradi? It used to serve the best pizza in Melbourne, but now it’s a shell of its former self.

And if all that wasn’t enough, at 7:30 PM, the music was cranked up to an absurd volume. This was supposed to be a family-friendly atmosphere, but we had to leave early because we couldn’t even hear each other. The whole experience was a complete disaster.

Save yourself the time, money, and frustration—avoid this place at all costs. We left shocked and incredibly disappointed. This is not the 400 Gradi we used to know....

What happened to 400 Gradi?

A few years back I still remembered their pizzas and pastas left me wanting for more than seconds. The ingredients used were simple yet it yielded products which the 400 Gradi group was renounced for their authentic Neopolitan pizza's. It seems like Johnny and his team has opened more restaurants than they can handle.

Pictured above is the Margherita and Diavola ordered from the East Brunswick location, which also happens to be their flagship store. Unfortunately once again, their team has missed the ballpark with serving sub-par quality food. Both pizzas were very underwhelming in terms of taste as they seem to be rationing and skimping on the San Marzano tomato base. As a result, the pizzas were on the drier side. I could tell the woodfired ovens were not up to the acclaimed 400 degrees temperature as there were hardly any leoparding on both pizzas. Visible white patches of flour from excessive use of semolina flour to help stretch the dough which left an unpleasant taste and mouth feel. The pizza slices were uneven due to the shape being more oval than it being round. I could tell the pizzas were in the woodfired oven for more than the acclaimed 90 seconds, as the fior di latte has visually splitted. Resulting in the greasy and oily film on the top. The cornicione was more dense than chewy and there was hardly any air bubbles.

The icing on the cake is that it seems that the dine in customers have a somewhat authentic Neopolitan pizza rather than the takeaways. Is it because that you hope we don't open the box until we get home and we just make do with what's been given? Where as you wouldn't blink twice to serve this dine in? Maybe this is the authentic Neopolitan experience you pride yourselves on.

What good is it to host pizza masterclasses, source quality ingredients and expand on the Gradi brand when their own chefs and cooks cannot hold themselves to a standard and serve an authentic Italian dining experience, which they claim is their ethos and...

Having heard so much about this place I expected more, much more. Service was good and footpath dining made comfortable by the gas heaters. Apart from that I’ll go ahead and say that the food was the most disappointing I have had in a while. We ordered a few entree’s and lets just say the Focaccia Herbs, Sea Salt, EVOO and mozzarella pretty much was a cheese pizza did not resemble a focaccia what so ever. No evidence or taste of a good quality EVOO on any of the dishes! We ordered the Cime di Rapa that were meant to be sautéed in oil, garlic and chilly. Passing normal broccolini for cime di rapa?Really? When I questioned it and after a conference between the waitress manager and the kitchen, I was advised that as cime di rapa where out of season it had been replaced with standard broccolini and that I should have been advised of that when ordering! Fair enough mistakes happen HOWEVER I was then assured by the manager that, the Orecchiette with cime di rapa and Italian sausage dish I had ordered as a main, would definitely have cime di rapa as the kitchen was only using the limited supply of this vegetable for this dish. Enter the mains 3 pizza’s and the orecchiette. At first glance couldn’t find any evidence of the cime di rapa. When I did see it and fished it out of the broth like liquid it was swimming in, their idea of cime di rapa was to use small cut sections of broccolini stalks and probably cut offs from the broccolini they served me earlier. The pizza the one thing I thought would save this experience was equally disappointing. My boys ordered Margherita’s with the addition of buffalo mozzarella. Can’t really stuff this up but they did. Fridge cold pieces of buffalo mozz. on a an already lukewarm pizza base which had no flavour at all. My wife's. Capricciosa was just as tasteless. No flavour in the sauce or the ham or any of the ingredients used. Based on my experience I would not...