Trattoria Emilia — Restaurant in Melbourne

We were amazed as to how quick the meal was delivered to our place of work today. We ordered, it came within about 15 minutes. Many of us stood there in wonderment trying to work out how that was logistically possible considering they are located on Little Collins and I am in South Melbourne.

One would normally see this as a positive, but honestly, it just didn’t make sense given the fact that we ordered Tortelloni Emiliani and Patate. If done correctly and freshly served, it would barely be possible to prepare and cook the Tortelloni in 15 minutes let alone drive to South Melbourne.

The ingredients of the Tortelloni Emiliani worked in theory and most likely in reality if care was taken when it came to balancing the flavours, being freshly served and meticulously prepared. The description gave us great hope… “Tortelloni filled with mortadella and prosciutto with a walnut, parmigiano sauce and balsamic reduction.”

If you refer to the picture uploaded (shown on the menu), you can see it looks delicious. When you compare this to what was served, you can see the balsamic is covering half of the meal rather than delicately positioned to ensure there is a balance of flavours, as in, little droplets here and there of balsamic.

I am an avid fan of fresh pasta and take great delight when feeling the slight resistance of freshly prepared ‘al dente’ pasta combined with the silky smooth texture. This pasta had clearly been sitting in the fridge for 24hrs… It was chewy/rubbery, dry and floury.

The sauce was entirely overpowered by the balsamic. The walnuts and parmigiano gave the sauce a powdery and grainy texture. A more apt description of the meal would be ‘drunken mess’…. I liken it to certain meals I have cooked which started strong conceptually, but after 5 glasses of wine have turned into a disaster…. I got the impression that the person that cooked this didn’t follow the recipe, nor had any love for food.

The ‘Patate/Chips’ were dreadful; I mean really dreadful (refer to photo). The chips were utterly soggy even though delivered within 15 mins and tasted of burnt oil… We threw them out after having 2-3 each… Actually, initially we sat them on the table while we continued working. It got to a point where the smell of the burnt oil became so overpowering that we threw them out.

My colleague and I spend on average $70-$100 each day on lunch at work (as we both appreciate divine food). We have no qualms paying for quality. In this case, I was not happy to have paid $28/serve for the ‘Tortelloni Emiliani’ and $9 for burnt soggy chips….

To be fair, I feel like something went drastically wrong in the kitchen today. It is the only conceivable explanation given the fact that they seem to have consistently high ratings (which is what led us to order).

What went...

If you didn't know it was there, you would walk right PASTA it. It's Trattoria Emilia and it has definitely made the ranks in my books when it comes to Italian food.

On the menu: 🥖 Complimentary bread ✨️ 🍖 Midollo - roasted bone marrow, fermented porcini, sauteed friarielli, garlic, chilli, served with crostini 🍝 Tagliatelle - pork & beef ragu’ ‘alla Bolognese’, parmigiano reggiano 🥩 Bistecca - Cape Grim porterhouse, almond pesto, rocket salad, Dutch carrots, veal jus 🍟 Patate - hand-cut fries with herb salt 🌱 Verdure - sauteed seasonal ‘Ramarro farm’ green

I am usually a sceptic when it comes to eating Italian food out. Flour and eggs are some of the most affordable ingredients, yet a bowl of pasta can go for $40 (that's such a helty PENNE)?! 💸💸💸 So I really need a bowl of pasta to be delicious to justify me paying the pricetag for it, otherwise imma be super upsetti with my spaghetti.

Trattoria Emilia did it. 👏👏👏

Firstly - complimentary bread. Free can never GRAIN on my parade (BUN intended). The bread was so flavourful on the inside and a solid bite on the crust. The only thing missing would have been a bit of salt to go with the oil. Or BATTER yet, butter... 🥹

It is not often that a restaurant serves bone marrow, this was definitely a something new. So fatty and well received, we were fighting to finish it. 😇

Now the pasta. It sounded fairly ordinary on the menu, but we were completely blown away by how thin the pasta was. You could almost see through it! Im-PASTA-ble! Very generous serves of meat too, which is RARE.I came for the steak (don't get me wrong, this was very WELL DONE) but I left for the pasta 😍

The fries were made in-house - I love that they leave the potato skin on one side so you know. Thin cut, light on the inside and fresh out of the fryer with a solid crunch on the outside. The TOT of going back to have these again has got me hungry again...🤤

Next time I will TORTELLINI be trying their tiramisu and pairing a glass (or bottle!) of wine with the food! Definitely LINGUINE-ing towards a bottle red... (jks it will...

I go to A LOT of restaurants but don't review much unless the experience was exceptionally good/bad. My partner and i arrived with two other guests for our 5th visit. My carne salata entree was ok. Still no bread after entrees so had to ask for it and it arrived very lonely without butter or olive oil, had to ask for that as well. I had spaghetti with bottarga, blue swimmer crab and chilli. The serving seemed like entree size for $32. I sent it back as the texture of the spaghetti felt like it was barely blanched. Yeah yeah i'm familiar with the concept of al dente ( to the tooth ) but this was not even close and my partner also tasted and agreed. It came back and was cooked better however it was bland with not much crab and no trace of chilli.....at ....all. Now my partner has an aversion to chilli and avoids it but she could not taste any in the dish, i sent that back. One of the managers suggested i try the Tortellini with mortadella, prosciutto, parmesan and walnut. The sauce had such an overwhelmingly bitter walnut taste that it made my lips pucker and it had the same effect on the other three people at the table as they also tried it. Terrible. It sat uneaten on the table for some time. When it was eventually taken away i was informed the chef wanted to have a word. Great. I would describe the attitude of the chef/owner Mr Francesco Rota as passive aggressive and yes i did describe his pasta as shitouse. All he had to do to diffuse the situation was apologise and perhaps offer a dessert on the house which most people would be happy with, instead he just walked off. When i pay premium prices i expect premium food and service. When leaving no one thought it might be a good idea to take that dish off the bill until asked. To be fair the previous four times we dined there the experience was good. There will definitely NOT be...