Micheli's Pizza & Pasta — Restaurant in Melbourne

I would normally not leave reviews about a dining experience as everyone has different expectations about what constitutes good food. When we arrived (group of 4) we sat down at the table with our BYO bottle of wine. Another 15 minutes passed with no one serving us or offering to take our order or open our wine. I asked a waiter can we get a bottle opener and he came back and said, "Is this what you want?" After that comment i knew we were in for a dining experience that would rival the comedy series," Faulty Towers." I proceeded to open my own wine (and still got charged $3 corkage per person) and waited for another 10 minutes and had no one offer to give us wine glasses. Again i had to ask someone for them. They were handed to us and we were left to pour our own wine. Another 15 minutes passed and we had to ask someone to take our order. After our order was taken one of our group spotted a member of staff taking 4 containers from a fridge, which can only assume was our 4 dishes going through a re heat process. Each dish arrived on our table about 3 minutes apart which is about the time it would take to put in a microwave. The Risotto Marinara was bland and tasteless. The only flavour was Garlic. The Risotto rice was waterlogged which made us suspect it was not made fresh. While we were enduring what we think was our re heated meals a staff member approached us and asked us if we would like to order desserts? Remember we were only half way through our mains...We politely declined the offer to order desserts. It was at this point it was agreed by all four of us that we just wanted to pay and get the hell out of this poor excuse for a restaurant. We do not blame the young, disinterested and untrained staff for this horrible experience. We blame the people who own this establishment. This review is not intended to bad mouth your business and if you are any good you will take this criticism and make changes to improve. If not, you are going to go out of business. We did share a garlic and herb focaccia as a starter, which i must say was excellent. I think this place is more of a takeaway pizza place and...

The pizza was quite nice and tasty. I had the lamb one. My husband had the meat and he said it was quite nice. The toppings appeared to be fresh.

The service was fine and waitress friendly. The pizza makers who you could see (as the place is very small) seemed happy.

A delivery arrived and the items were brought past our table. Some items had to be manually passed over from the dining area to the staff area as there wasn't room to bring the items past our table or perhaps they were trying to disrupt us less. This was after 6 pm, so I don't understand why this couldn't have been done at another time and had to interrupt our dining experience.

We ordered an apple pie type pizza desert which we shared. It tasted OK, but was non memorable. I think I would rather a piece of real apple pie rather than a pizza one. The apple pie pizza was suggested to us when we asked about desserts so we ordered it. I did not see this item on a special's board or the menu. Maybe it was, but I didn't see it and it certainly wasn't pointed out or the price made clear. Anyway, I still have no idea how much the apple pie pizza actually was. We were a bit shocked at our bill, as adding everything up in heads afterwards it appeared we were charged $20 or more for the apple pie pizza. The rest of the prices were OK but then we could see them on the menu. I understand it is OK for a restaurant to charge whatever they deem appropriate for an item, but all prices should be obvious, especially when they are so high so you can make an informed choice.

There was a positive energy in the place. The decor was a bit (non chic) shabby and the place very very small. I could imagine on a busy night it may be uncomfortable, especially since many of the seats appear to be backless stools.

Overall I would eat there again as the pizzas were OK, but would steer clear of the...

we are locals in the area and have gone to michelis even before its renovation so around 7-9 years now. recently, for probably our last few visits all aspects of the restaurant have slipped to an all time low. as mentioned in other reviews, the atmosphere is SO loud, and that isn’t an understatement. i don’t recommend for people who are easily overwhelmed. now onto the service, i understand as a hospo worker myself its rough when you are super busy, but my gosh the service tonight was incredibly poor. we waited probably 45-1hr for our food, and they brought 2 mains out before bringing mine 20 minutes later. both the mushroom risotto and the lamb pizza were very weak tonight. they always use the cheapest cuts of lamb and its just so disappointing for the price point they charge. the risotto usually has sauce and is flavoursome but tonight was dry and had no flavour. the workers obviously seemed over it [i dont blame them] and i dont know what happened tonight but we just wanted to flag it due to our regular visits to this store; tonight there just seemed to be corners cut and this is just not on for the amount they charge. hope you guys can up the...