La Baia Bar Cucina — Restaurant in Melbourne

We wanted to enjoy this dining experience so much given we live in close proximity and love Italian food!

Unfortunately, not the authentic Italian cuisine we were hoping for.

Service was also poor, having to constantly look around and call out for a waiter to take our orders. They just weren’t aware of their customers and always had their heads down. The restaurant wasn’t even busy.

They were lovely and friendly, just not experienced in my opinion.

For example, we ordered arancini which was listed as beef arancini and we received mushroom. When I got up (because I could not get their attention) and spoke with the waiter, they said “ oh sorry I forgot to tell you, the menu has changed, and there is no beef arancini” Wow 😮 lucky I’m not allergic to mushrooms!

The arancini themselves were very bland, and tasted like frozen food, not authentic or made in house. A+ for presentation on the plate though!

The main pizza was great, we ordered the entree focaccia, which was ok, and the white base sausage pizza, this one was pretty good and had a thin base.

Our other main was the Carbonara pasta. The worst Carbonara I have ever had in my life despite the menu describing it as containing the authentic ingredients. It was bland and tasteless. Had to add a lot of salt, requested parmigiano cheese to add and chilli oil to give it some flavour.

The desserts we ordered, Tiramisu and the Tiramisu cocktail were excellent!

So in summary, Entree was a let down, Pasta was a let down and service was quite average.

Pizza and dessert were however great!

A restaurant that has more potential in a...

We were invited into La Baia Bar Cucina to a enjoy a lovely dinner. When we arrived we were greeted by the welcoming front of house and were kindly shown to our table. The interior of the restaurant is warm and cosy. We choose a glass of wine each. The Headliners Shiraz (McLaren Vale) and the Silent Waters Pinot Noir (Adelaide Hills). Both wines were lovely to drink. For our Entrées we had the Arancini di Manzo (beef) w/herb aioli and the Bruschetta Classica w/Grana Padano cheese. The Arancini came with 3 good sized arancini balls. They were a lovely flavour. The Bruschetta had a generous amount of tomatoes. Nice fresh flavours. Our Mains were the Gnocchi di Zucca al Burro Fuso e Salvia and the Lamb Rack. The gnocchi was absolutely delicious. So soft and pillowy. Wonderful flavours. The Lamb Rack was amazing too. Perfectly cooked, very tender and delicious ingredients served with it. Burst of heat from the lentils. After enjoying such delicious entrées and mains we decided on sharing a dessert, the ‘Nutellotta’ (Nutella Pannacotta w/blood orange sorbet & toasted almonds) It was delicious and a lovely dish to finish off our wonderful dinner. A nice and relaxing restaurant. There was nice music playing through the night. All of our dishes came out pretty quickly. The presentation of all dishes were great. Great service. We would definitely visit again - 5 stars! We thank La Baia Bar Cucina for a lovely Friday night dinner. All of our opinions are genuine and are based on our experience at the time...

I've been here before when it was a Thai restaurant but this was the first time trying it after changing hands and becoming Italian. It's in a perfect spot with easy parking and space to have big groups or small tables of two.

The ambiance is lovely and there's beautiful music playing. The menu has a reasonable selection (unless you don't eat seafood or pork/ham), and something for everyone, I'm sure.

Entrees came out in good time and were presented really well. Mains took a long time to come out, and while later we found out that it's because the kitchen staff aren't back to full numbers because of Covid, this wasn't made clear to us during the time, and someone could have at least said to us "sorry, it won't be much longer", but no one did. Some tables were served out of order (one of my big pet peeves). But when everything finally did come out, it was really delicious. My gnocchi was perfectly cooked and soft and flavourful and the sauce just perfect. The desert was great too.

I'd definitely come back again. The staff were very friendly and tried to make things right. That goes a long way with me. I know places are struggling, so I won't let the nearly 50 minute wait for main meal to become a lingering issue. Just know that if you come here, you'll have a great meal and good food experience. It's priced well and...