Pinocchios Wine & Pizza Bar — Restaurant in New South Wales

I was really looking forward to enjoying their vegan options in the pizza range.

Having recently moved to the Central Coast we have tried various vegan options from the local food establishments.

However this experience was below average and a disappointment to my taste buds. With a 2hr and 15min wait for 2 pizzas from the time we ordered through their web page to our dining table. This appalling and an embarrassment to the hospitality industry professionals who are doing it with much better cohesion and tact. We called several times to be greeted with an answering machine message. Finally getting through after 1hr 50mins from ordering, and mind you have paid and been sent a receipt. My partner was confronted with an obvious stressed and under experienced representative of this establishment who proceeded to deflect and make excuses for the delay. This person informed us the order was not here and must definitely be on the way. We were told by the representative of this restaurant that they were very busy and had only one driver as other staff had not been available to help with deliveries. Great thanks that doesn’t help us as we had paid $80 for 2 pizzas, salad and herbed potatoes. This person seemed to deflect their inability to give any standard of service as our problem and we should have empathy for them being so busy.

Wrong!! As a customer we deserve service and it’s called hospo for a reason. A suggestion maybe not offer the delivery service if your understaffed for that particular service period.

Maybe inform your customers that there may be a delay in delivery times and give us the option to either order or NOT. Just taking money and offering a sub standard service is the reason why the industry has lost its sparkle and amateur Venues as yourselves should offer better training to your staff and improve your operational output.

The food itself had flavour but the bases need much improvement. Your establishment gives pizzas a bad rap. Thank you for the worst experience I’ve had on the CC. I will never recommend this...

I am going to be as objective as possible as this venue has serious potential to be outstanding. We will start with the positives and then move on to what needs improvement with some suggestions to rectify the issues we had.

The front of house staff were amazing, friendly, attentive and polite. The atmosphere was clean, dimly lit with gentle music playing in the background and overall very inviting. We didn't have to wait long at all for our drinks and food to be served ( 5 - 10 min). The 2 drinks (a mocktail and cocktail) were expertly crafted and tastes amazing. The 2 food items however (Mushroom arancini and Pork belly pizza) need improvement. The Mushroom arancini was crisp with a creamy risotto filling that was unfortunately bland, under seasoned and lacking umami (definitely edible but nothing special). The pork belly pizza had a crisp and lightly chewy base with pork belly that was very thick cut and extremely tough and chewy along with the rest of the pizza toppings being again under seasoned and lacking umami.

My suggestions would be for the kitchen to pay more attention to the seasoning and to taste more often in the cooking process. Maybe consider using a more concentrated stock and more parmesan cheese for the risotto filling in the arancini. When using secondary cuts of meat on a pizza they either need to be sliced wafer thin for a crisp texture or slowly cooked (brazing, slow roasting etc) to break down the collagen enough to leave a soft gelatinous texture.

I really do hope that Pinocchio's takes this criticism seriously and implement the necessary changes as they really stand a good chance of becoming a pillar in Gosford's food scene

I wish all the best to this up and coming...

I'm so SAD! Pinocchios used to serve top quality food with top quality service. I used to tell every man and his dog it was the place to go on the coast.

It's been a few months since I was there last, but the quality has gone way down. Was surprised to head in on a Thursday to find a set menu. With two options Meat or Vegetarian. Not a big fan of not being able to choose my own dishes, but ok fine, will give it a go.

Upon closer inspection the menus we're almost exactly the same with most of the meat menu being vegetarian! Even the pizza option on the meat menu was vegetarian (Margherita). We asked the waitress if we could add any pepperoni or prosciutto to the pizza (paying extra if required) and was met with a resounding no.

The pizza here used to be so good (and to be fair the pizza base was delicious, just the toppings were stingy).

My advice would be if you're going to have a meat option on a set menu at least throw a few slices on pepperoni onto the pizza! Besides that, the donuts for we're hard as nails, mushroom pizza was insanely salty (and I'm a salt fanatic) and the margherita pizza had one small dolop of mozzarella on each slice so was mostly pizza base and tomato paste.

I seriously am not one to complain, but there are not many amazing places to eat on the coast, and this place used to be phenomenal. Now it's dumbed itself down to average at best. Knowing how good they can be it's just...