D.O.C Pizza & Mozzarella Bar - Carlton — Restaurant in Melbourne

I visited DOC Pizza & Mozzarella Bar with four friends on the evening of Saturday 18 November, for a dining session commencing at about 7:15 pm.

We dined al fresco, seated at comfortable tables outside the establishment. The service by the waiters was excellent - with warm welcome, and efficient and attentive service from taking our orders, providing drinks from an extensive wine, beer and non alcoholic beverage list, serving, and providing the bill at the end of the meal.

To me, the menu items were pricier than other Italian restaurants in Carlton. However, as three of the group had dined there previously and said the pizza was "amazing", and the food was artisan, I was happy to spend a little extra for beautiful food - based on others' recommendations.

We shared four entrees, all of which were impeccable: a platter of 6 meatballs with a wonderful thick and rich tomato sauce, a charcuterie board with slices of four different artisan meats including capocollo and prosciutto, with a few grissini sticks a crisp, tasty EVOO and salt focaccia Burrata - a tangy and soft melt-in-the- mouth cheese that was surprisingly refreshing and enjoyed by all

As three of the group of five did not want pizza - as they had/were having pizza in the past and future 24 hours - all of us ordered one of the two pasta options. There was lasagna ($31) ordered by one person, and gnocchi ($32) ordered by the other four.

The lasagna serving was about 10 cm square and 4 cm high. The gnocchi servings were in a 20 cm round platter with raised sides that contained a single layer of gnocchi bathed in the rich tomato sauce base. No salad or vegetable accompaniment was included in the price of the pasta dishes.

Frankly, the serving sizes were small for the $30+ price tags. Had we not ordered the entree, they would have been insufficient.

While the person who ordered the lasagna thought the price was high for the smaller than expected serving size, they said the flavour and consistency of the dish were wonderful.

Unfortunately, all four gnocchi plates were disappointing. The oven baked gnocchi were burnt and overcooked an inch all around the circumference of the plates, reminiscent of the excavations of Pompeii - "gli scavi di Pompeii". The gnocchi the next inch inwards from the burnt edges all round were rubbery, like "gomma americana". One member could only eat half. On my plate, the outside edges were so burnt, they were inedible and/or a risk for broken teeth! The already inadequate serving size was therefore reduced again. In all, myself and two others ate about 10 out of the 15 small mouthfuls that were in their plates, and the lady who ate about half of her gnocchi was lucky to have had eight mouthfuls.

All five of us all commented that we wished we ordered pizza!!!!

As the venue was very busy, and all the entrees and lasagna were good, we did not want to complain about the gnocchi dishes to avoid causing a fuss.

I down graded my service mark from 5 stars, for the graciousness and efficacy of the wonderful waiters, down to 4 stars, for the negligence of the chef(s) to allow the burnt gnocchi to be taken to our table.

With respect to creators and price setters of the menu, and the artisan chefs, please:

Increase the serving sizes of both pasta mains by at least one third, for the $30+ menu price. Alternatively, reduce the price to no more than $25 for the same serving size and

Avoid overcooking and burning the oven baked gnocchi. Surely, if attention was duly paid by the chefs: A. the gnocchi would not have burned and B. The chefs would have noticed the food was burnt, and refused to serve it. A waiter should then have been sent to the table to apologise for a delay, while extra dishes should have been prepared to replace...

There's a Chinese saying "happy times pass fast" and without knowing it, we'd spent close to 4 hours in Melbourne Zoo despite the planned 3 hours here. Good thing that we had breakfast early or else it'd be late by the time we stepped out of the zoo. As usual, the small ones were begging for the tummy to be fed - and heading back to the CBD wasn't a good option so I decided to bring them for fail-proof food - pizza! I found his highly rated place less than 10 minutes drive and soon I dropped everyone in front of the restaurant while I struggled to find an available parking nearby. In the end I had to settle parking inside Woolworth's parking instead of risking being fined.

Everything about this place was simple yet practical and functional. Bottles of wines were lined up at the counter to choose from.. the focus is on the pizza as well as mozzarella, salad and cured meat. ◾Salumi board - a selection of cured meats. It came with a choice of Italian Buffalo mozzarella, Australian Scamorza (smoked mozzarella) or Australian fior di latte. Opted for the former as I loved buffalo mozzarella and it didn't disappoint. ◾Radicchio salad with shaved fennel, orange, walnuts, DOP gorgonzola and balsamic. ◾pizza napoletana - San Marzano tomato, mozzarella, anchovies and Ligurian olives. Trust the Italians to make good pizzas. The crust was almost perfect with crusty on the outside, fluffy on the inside... Tomato sauce and mozzarella were perfect with anchovies giving it the savouriness balanced by the olives.

Service was machine-like.. efficient and fast. The tiny weeny thing that I didn't like was the attitude. This place is run by Italians and instead of receiving the warmth Italian welcome, it felt cold from start until we left the premise. Don't get me wrong, the food and service fantastic.. almost faultless I'd say but they could be friendlier. Still I give them...

The food was delicious, couldn’t fault. As someone from Europe myself and my friend (been to Italy numerous times) couldn’t fault the food. The pizza and salad was very authentic and tasty! Unfortunately the service was a big let down. Outside the door where we were waiting, the sign displayed ‘wait to be seated’ so after waiting for 10 minutes patiently with zero acknowledgment at the door, we assumed maybe we need to create attention to a waitress that we wanted a seat (even though we had booked a table and the place wasn’t busy at all) so I opened the door and a waiter with blonde dyed hair and an arrogant presence slammed the door in my face. Me and my friend were both shocked. As someone who has been worked in hospitality a majority of my life, I am extremely understandable the stress a restaurant environment can be like, however the restaurant empty and the utter rudeness, was something which was completed uncalled for and something I have never experienced in my whole life dining out…To make things even worse; when eventually someone came outside, me and my friend were completely disassociated and ignored. Two men who came a fair bit after us were instantly greeted and given a table. Before we had even ordered our food, theirs had arrived. I feel this place has a lot of potential, however the arrogance from one of the wait staff was disgusting. Our other waiter was nice and accomodating, but even so the initial experience put a sour taste in our mouths. If I hadn’t initially booked a table with a fee, we would have left. I had been wanting to come to DOC for a while, it’s just a shame that the entitlement and superiority factor had such a heavy weight on customers who just wanted to enjoy some pizza and good vibes. Shout out to the chef though, very yum! Just don’t forget about...