El Capitano - Pizzeria & Cocktail Bar — Restaurant in Noosa Heads

Ahoy there mateys!

If someone said to you, "hey, let's go to the pizzeria bar!", and then somehow you ended up at El Capitano on that notion, well you might just find something much different to what you would expect.

This establishment breathes a pleasant old salt taste, similar to a "classy" version of the inside of a fine sailing vessel. Nautical themed throughout, El Capitano is white-modern with beechwood highlights and certainly has a sea shanty feel.

There's a wicked octopus wall graphic on the right as you walk into the restaurant, accompanied by a mermaid and other ocean-related paraphernalia. You’ll also find the octopus’ arms cleverly wrapped around their bespoke take away pizza boxes, ready to grab your bounty.

Avast! There are detailed shipping bits and bobs, soft lighting and comfy booths surrounded by casual benches (the kind you would find aboard a ship). Here, you can find a nice place to nestle in with a friend, sharing stories related to the sea well into the night.

And, if you don’t get hooked on the house “Holy Water” (one of their grapefruit inspired cocktails), then you might just take a swig from one of the old rum bottles (but seriously, use a glass). Which of course has the “real” stuff in it, you know… water.

While you casually sit there you may even think about your 'Buccaneers'? And those ears, just might be listening to soft pop songs of the eighties like Bruce Springsteen's "I'm on fire", while you landlubbers wait for your meals.

There are neatly dressed motley crew floating around this land-ship like angels on a cloud. I must say that the staff are all studious, attentive, energetically efficient, and aim to please during your dining experience. A real pleasure to find in a place like Noosa.

The menu is non-pretentious and quite affordable (unlike some other places you may find in the area), which really makes you feel more welcomed.

When it comes time to eat, you may find yourself sorting through a fine antipasti selection, then diving in to some garlic dough balls or grilled tiger prawns.

For me though, being the vegetarian pirate that I am, I ordered the vegan butternut pizza bianca. It was a toss up between that and the sweet potato option, but as one does, I was ogling a fellow diners' pizza at the large shared table I was at and just 'had' to order it. The cute little wisps of eggplant tahini on top sold it for me.

The flavours worked well for a 72 hour fermented dough base, and was indeed, delicious. I ordered parsley for my top as I don't like coriander and they were happy to oblige. The Chef was kind enough to ensure each slice had sample of each flavour for my pallet. Don't you love when they do that!

I must admit, it would have been better had they dashed some more onion jam on the top, cuz that ship is the bomb! (see what I did there?)

There was no entree for me, although I did enjoy a local cold pressed pineapple juice, because the pizza sizes are quite large. El Capitano was kind enough to allow me to take the remaining pieces home, and I have to say, pizza is sometimes seriously so much better cold, because at home, all of those flavours just went boom! But pizza is like that sometimes huh.

El Capitano is certainly not one of those post-covid businesses asking for inflated charitable dinner prices, like some I've been to. (Cmon, you know what I'm talking about.) That is certainly not the case here. So hold on to that loose change clanging about in your pockets and save it for a tip, because the staff really do deserve it.

It seems this land-ship was also recognised by the Noosa council, Noosa tourism and the Plastic Free program for being one of the only champions on the Noosa strip for reducing their plastic waste to almost nothing. Well done El Capitano! A pro-earth business, we like that.

El Capitano, a sight for sore eyes for local or non-local riff raff pouring in from the gorgeous Hastings St. A place to feel welcomed and easy after a hard day tanning it up at the beach.

Enjoy yer' meals me...

The waitstaff were friendly and tried hard to help, but it was a train wreck evening. Seated 5mins early. Drinks arrived promptly, unfortunately the mocktail (non-alcoholic) I ordered was not what was delivered, I received a cocktail (alcoholic). Fortunately I knew it tasted like alcohol (since I’m dietary intolerant of alcohol), but that could’ve been a disaster on so many levels if I didn’t notice. A waitstaff member apologised and said the menu would be updated to avoid the mocktail being named the same as a cocktail. I was offered another free mocktail, but declined (in hindsight should have requested its removal from bill; which was not offered). Then we waited 30-mins for pizzas (many apologies from a lovely wait person): the gluten free vegan butternut finally arrived STONE COLD 😒, it had teeny pieces of cauliflower, possibly 0.5mm teensy tiny bits of coriander, and a few strings of onion ‘jam’. The GF base was so hard and brittle. They were unable to do a kids pizza as GF, but was told it would be billed the same as child’s menu ($25 pizza & drink & gelato). The 2nd (gf) pizza arrived about 5-7 mins after the 1st, and was warm so the gf base was more edible. There was only x 1 option for dairy free gelato (included in kids meal) which was plain coconut, which we did not have since that flavour was disliked. There’s heaps of gelato places around that have 6-10 vegan options, so bizarre not to stock any other options. I could barely read the bill when it came; and only after I left noticed the GF pizza subbed for kids pizza WAS NOT billed as part of child’s menu AND I was billed a “meal upgrade” kids drink totalling $31 now!!! There were zero offers to compensate for any of this disaster night on my bill. With the total bill being $90 for rubbish food, almost poisoned drink, and overcharged child’s meal (where we didn’t even consume the gelato) 🤯 So despite them employing lovely waitstaff, it’s a total ripoff and obviously couldn’t give a crap about customer...

This used to be our number one destination when coming to Noosa. The upstairs had so much character but most of all the pizzas were 10/10

every time we would book our Noosa holiday we would salivate over dinners out here.

We arrived to find it had moved downstairs.. I don’t mind the fit out but it lost its charm..

Waitresses were nice, and mostly attentive, the issue arrived when we received our pizzas. They were burnt to a crisp! And believe me I love over done pizza, but this time all 3 tasted like burnt pizza.

My wife’s vegan one she usually loves was so dry/bland it was like we were eating at a completely different restaurant, because it was so over done it completely dried up the pumpkin base. The undercarriage was black and every bit was like tasting burnt bread. even our local pizza in Syd out did our once pedistool pizzas from here.

You can tell the love has gone/ maybe a new chef ? I got the preparoni with add olives. They wasn’t even care given in making it to spread the olives out.. just thrown on in 2 huge clumps on 2 slices. Overall the pizza lacked flavour/ oil its was dry burnt and just plain average.

The margarita for the kids was bunt badly with black bubbles all over it even on the slice where it was lacking cheese. (Usually you only see these bubbles on the crust:

Unfortunately we will seek new dining options on our holidays at Noosa. This once loved destination has completely flopped in its...