La Lupa Romana Pizza e Gnocchi Bar — Restaurant in Melbourne

Unfortunately what looked like great pizzas sadly were missing a very important element.. Being cooked!! Firstly, when the pizza arrived we were surprised at how quick it was. Not service quick, but cooking time quick. They looked good, were burnt around the edges, which isn't a big issue, until I realised some areas so much so that it was burnt to the degree that it turned into charcoal and crumbled into black, dust like residue on the table when I touched it. But the main issue was trying to eat it. When I tried to pick up a slice I realised that was impossible, couldn't even fold it from side to side. So I folded it from the tip to the crust, then again, so basically if the crust wasn't attached it would be like rolling a pancake. It actually felt like a pancake too. Same texture. It also has alot of liquid dripping from it, (not oily) that would have only come from the buffalo mozzarella, meaning they haven't dried it out then drained and strained it. If this isn't done you get a watery pizza. So a combo of not prepping the buffalo mozzarella fully and 100% undercooked Now, I'm no expert, but I do know that the pizza dough when cooked should be firm and have a slightly crisp bottom from being cooked in the high heat of a wood-fired oven. The goal is to achieve a good balance of crispy and chewy texture, not a pancake-like softness that can easily be rolled up. Which is what I had. The other pizza was the same, but had a doughy taste to it too. Topping flavours were very nice on my charcoal edge pancake.

I did, politely tell the waitress that the flavour was very nice, then showed her how undercooked the base was. Showing her my rolled slice, and touching it, showing how soft it was. Then picked up another slice, the small piece of prosciutto fell off and the pizza slice flopped and hung like a wet towel. So appetizing! NOT The waitress just said "that's how they're cooked" someone needs educating and awareness!

I'm sure this isn't an always occurrence. As they wouldn't have customers. But for my first time, being served that pizza and to be brushed off by a waitress, who with that reply has no clue that cooked pizza, woodfire or not should not be able to be rolled up like a pancake..We will certainly be not going back. And to top of a crappy meal, we were asked if we wanted dessert, we declined and continued chatting, as we only just had our pizza pancakes removed from the table, then the waitresses started giving us the evil glare, the one when they want you to leave.

In response to your reply, I didn't change the review twice, i had some spelling errors and was fixing them. It was not a personal attack, I don't know you or your staff, so how can it be personal?? That was an odd comment you made. It was a honest review on the pizzas we got, and the lack of knowledge or customer service we got when it was mentioned, not a complaint, just a by the way.. this is the same texture as a pancake..mm rather undercooked. Not personal, but fact. Also re read what I wrote. Never said we were asked to leave, nor that your staff were evil. But yes, we were getting that evil eye look.. when the wait staff can see a table are not purchasing anything else.

But when I eat for the first time somewhere, and the food is undercooked, and all the waitress can say is that's how they're cooked.. sorry but that's an issue. Either your waitress didn't care, or hasn't a clue.. either way, it's not good. Because we both know, that's not how woodfire pizzas are surposed to be cooked, and you wouldn't have so many good reviews if they were all cooked like pancakes, would you!

And we ordered 2 pizza's not one! Again did you not read the review? Maybe only half read it, like how our pizzas were half...

This place took us from a 5 star night to a 1 star very quickly.

Before I go on, the food and service is great, however the arrogance of the owner destroyed our night in the end. We were around 20 people / 10 couples and when it came to paying we saw "no split payments" on the menu. Although I believe this is ridiculous in this day and age with such easy payment processing means, eh I can get over that.

However.. two or three of other couples progressively went up and although there was a major hassle, they were able to pay their share via card. A little while later my partner went to pay and was told no more splits, the last people were the last he'd do.

That's fine she said, is there an ATM near. The owner said yeah it's over there, pointing in a general direction. After going outside she discovered he had pointed her to an ATM about 200m away, across two main roads, while it was storming, with very poor lighting. It should be noted, that morning a girl had been raped and murdered closer to the city and this had been all over the news.

She obviously said she wasn't going there and I said of course not, and to be honest neither was I (it was pouring!!). We went back to the counter and waited for the owner, who stood laughing and ignoring us with a table of mates in the corner, and told him this. He then talked about how he couldn't split anymore even if we paid an extra fee because.... well I still don't know.

The end of the story is someone paid the lot on card, however not without the owner making us all feel like criminals.

I hope he sees this and realises not only how poor his part of the service was (especially asking people to walk 200m through the rain so he wouldn't have to have his staff type in 4 more numbers) as a business owner, but also as just a decent human being. However, if he does see this, he seemed like the type of guy who'd just say - well it did say no splitting...

We ordered a pizza Agostino (delicious, such a nice pizza base), & pasta Carbonara. The Carbonara was so hard & under-cooked it was inedible. In fact, it didn't get eaten & we shared the pizza for dinner. It had maybe 2 small pieces of bacon in the small serving, which was served lukewarm. The worst part of all this though is that the staff made us feel stupid for not appreciating 'aldente' pasta (it was well below aldente). They called the manager/owner, as there was no one on duty who could make the decision on whether we should still pay for the meal that we could not eat. The owner kindly took the meal off the bill. We were grateful - but then the staff made a grave error of judgement & continued to argue with us about how we are wrong in our opinion that it was under-cooked. They had not even tried to cut through it to test it, they were so sure that they were right & we were wrong. We left with a really bad feeling about the customer culture there & felt upset & embarrassed that we had to argue the point. The staff member didn't have to continue to argue once his manager told him over the phone to deduct the meal from the bill. He made a choice to be arrogant. His need to be 'right' was unnecessary. I have never had to complain about a meal before & I never want to have to again, so we will not be returning. Who needs that stress when you go out...