VIA CONDOTTI — Restaurant in Melbourne

Ambience is beautiful, service is excellent. Food below par. Starters was Brueshetta which was very dry. It came on a pizza base, no balsamic glaze or hardly any we could taste. The tomatoes had no seasoning either. We ordered the Porterhouse steak with pepper sauce. The steak was cooked medium rare than the medium we wanted. Three crisps of sweet potato and 5 beans were in the plate. Steak was resting on a squidge of cauliflower pureé. The pepper sauce was watery and tasteless with a few peppercorns it it. The steak was like boiled meat. For an Italian restaurant the portions were like for a French restaurant. Barramundi and chips was another main ordered. Sorry to say the Barra did not taste anything like Barramundi. It was very flat that 2 pieces were put together. It tasted steamed, no flavour at all. Had to use a lot of salt and pepper to be able to eat it. The chips were cooked in stale oil and most of them tasted like they were re-cooked, they were hard and glazed over. The salad on the side was very dry. While sitting there we were noticing the barman 'washing' the glasses. He would just dunk the lip of the glass in soapy water and put it on the draining tray. No rubbing or cleaning it. So disgusting. Also the left over cola's he poured over his hard liquor for him to drink. The coffee was excellent but best of all were the staff who were very attentive. I don't like writing bad reviews but went to this restaurant after reading all the good reviews and was very disappointed so I want people to know what to expect and decide accordingly. The place was packed though so it may have been the...

Dined here twice in the past 4 months. First visit, we had pizza and calamari...both were very enjoyable, however the side salad to the calamari needed seasoning and more dressing. Service was friendly and efficient! 😉

We dined here again yesterday (6 Feb 2025) and found the service to be friendly once again, although a little slow at times. (Understandable, considering only one female waitress serving approximately 26 people.)

This time, we shared an ortolana pizza, an entree sized eggplant-filled ravioli with burrata and fettuccine carbonara. Pizza was good, however, it needed seasoning to give it more flavour.

The sauce which accompanied the ravioli needed garlic, seasoning and certainly more cooking, as it was unfortunately bland. 😏 Hmmm...the carbonara? The pasta was perfectly cooked, however, the meal was too dry for my liking. It certainly needed virgin olive oil, more egg (hardly any trace of it) and...maybe garlic to give it more flavour. Also, I would suggest adding some freshly chopped parsley before serving. 😉

Overall, a pleasant evening with a warm and friendly ambience. Thank you!

PS - Bathroom was super clean and much...

Not safe for allergies. The chef clearly has no education in cross contamination. We rang before coming to check it would be safe for coeliac, which they told us yes, but when we arrived the waitress told us they don’t use separate friers as “friers kill gluten” and when we asked for a pizza to be put on a pan to avoid cross contamination we were told no. We understand saying if you can’t cook for allergies but don’t say you can and then very obviously not be able to. We then got a salad and the sausage entree which were both marked as gluten free on the menu AND we notified the wait staff of the allergies and still ended up with a reaction. AVOID AT ALL COST IF YOU...