Monzarella Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

Monzarella has a reputation as one of the best Italian food restaurants in the area so I had to give it a try. On a warm autumnal evening, we arrived (made a booking in advance) to find a few diners inside but by the time we left it was quite busy both indoors and outdoors. The menu is extensive (see photo). There must’ve been 70+ choices, somewhat overwhelming, so I went to my known love of gnocchi. I chose pan-fried gnocchi, with pumpkin, olive oil, spinach and goats cheese. My partner had a porterhouse (300g) served with mashed potato and a bowl of mushroom, spring onion in a napoli sauce. Food: the gnocchi wasn’t as pan-fried as I’d liked and size larger than I’m used to, but they weren’t doughy. The pumpkin was steamed and I prefer roasted (that’s a very personal choice). Portion size was plentiful. The steak was ordered rare / medium rare but came out as medium. The staff were happy to replace and a new steak was served quickly. This time it was perfect. The flavours from the sauce were a lovely accompaniment. Monzarella is licensed with an extensive wine, beer and cocktails list. If you BYO it’s an $8 corkage fee. Decor is traditional red, white and green - the colours of Italy. Music playing in background was nice but a tad too loud for me but once the place filled up with people, it’s less noticeable. Dietaries catered for but please read disclaimer at the bottom of menu. Notes: parking out front but please read time limits. Toilets on site. Kid friendly. High chairs available. There are 3 steps into the restaurant so not wheelchair friendly. Dogs allowed outside on leash. There is a function room upstairs that seats 80 comfortably.

#monzarella #monzarellarestaurant #monzarellaitalianrestaurant #williamstownrestaurant #williamstownrestaurants #italianfood #panfriedgnocchi #panfriedgnocchiwithpumpkin #porterhousesteak...

Not one to write reviews but thought this place could use genuine advice. Visiting from interstate staying in Williamstown. Drove past one night and looked extremely busy, went to google and saw how many amazing reviews there was so thought would give it a go. Was very excited. Unfortunately the experience did not live up to expectations.

Staff are very unpersonable, had 8+ waiters running around the all over the place like headless chooks. Would think you would have waiters assigned to zones?

The waitress served me first, I ordered entrees for me and my partner, ordered my main, he went to start speaking to order his main and she took the menus and walked off. Aren’t you taught to repeat the order back before you walk off? Was very difficult to get the attention of another waiter, however managed to do so.

Wine came out warm despite it not being a hot day. Entrée’s were good. My partners steak came out and was extremely chewy. It was also placed on top of his cutlery? And our empty entree’s were not cleared from the table. Almost 10 minutes passed and I asked about my Margherita pizza as it hadn’t come out yet. Waiter told me he would have a look, no update despite him walking past us multiple times after. About 10 minutes later then was served a burning hot pizza. Clearly I was forgotten about.

Whilst waiting for my meal, my partner then asked for scotch and coke and was then served it in a tall glass with a smoothie straw? Very odd.

I understand people have a bad day but the whole experience was extremely disappointing. I think the biggest downfall was the service, the place seems very disorganised and is just focused on speed instead of a personable interaction. Having waiters assigned to zones just seems to be common sense instead of having multiple staff legitimately running in...

Usually love this place & have been there many times before with fantastic experiences but I made a booking for last night where we had a bad experience.

We had booked for 8pm for 2, obviously being Valentine's Day it was busy so booked well in advance to secure a table which was confirmed. When we arrived it was busy with a few table empty which had been turned over. Two couples arrived just before us & when asked by the host whether they had a booking they both replied no. We were asked and obviously said yes & the name it was booked under.

After a short wait the couples in front of us got taken to tables that were available. We were then directed upstairs where the host said we would have our table. We get upstairs & wait at the top of the stairs for a couple minutes until a waitress asked us if we had a booking which we replied 'yes', she then said they didn't have a table upstairs except for one out on the balcony which was getting rained on. Our table was also the only one without a table cloth, cutlery or the rose petals that every other table had.

Service was also quite poor (not due to the wait staff) with the table we were on not being a 'proper' table so orders on the balcony were consistently being delivered to the wrong tables because of no proper system.

Again this all would have been not quite a big issue if we had not booked a table but we did & received the worst table in the place not to mention worse than the tables of people who had not booked.

The food itself was as good as usual & the actual wait staff were fantastic knowing that the situation wasn't ideal & apologising on behalf of the venue.

Like I said, we usually love this place just very disappointed with...