Bocca Italian — Restaurant in Sunshine Coast Regional

As a huge fan of Tony Kelly's other restaurants RiceBoi and Piggyback, we were eagerly anticipating our booking for 9 people for my wife's birthday. Unfortunately the experience was overall quite disappointing.

The main gripe was the two hour time limit on the table, which we were only made aware of by chance when my wife enquired the day before our booking. This limited our experience greatly. The location of Bocca is hampered by the fact there are no other establishments nearby, which is of course not their fault, however those who may want to socialise with friends nearby or even at the restaurant before or after their dinner booking have little to no options to do so.

Upon arrival for our 6pm booking, 4 of our friends were already seated and drinks orders taken, however it was around 15 mins before their drinks appeared and the rest of the party had orders taken, which then took another 15 mins or so. It was 45 mins before our starters were ordered and one hour into the booking before main course orders were taken. During this time we sat with empty glasses for some time before managing to flag down a passing staff member to take more drinks orders. A few of us considered ordering bottles of wine but decided against it given the time constraint on the booking wouldn't have allowed us to enjoy it.

By the time the mains arrived, we had approx 40 mins to eat, and squeeze in one more drink before the waitress quetly whispered to the birthday girl that the 2 hours was almost up and we were rushed to the door to pay so that they could prepare the table for anther quickfire round of service. No time for dessert!

Onto the food itself. It wasn't bad, but there was also nothing in particular to rave about. Pizzas were nice and chewy as you would expect for a neapolitan style dough, but you can't really go wrong with pizza. The calimari starter was ok, if a little oily, and seemed very overpriced at $25 per plate. Our friends also said much the same about their meals. In fact the price of the food was one of the talking points among our party upon leaving, none of us felt the quality matched the cost.

At the time of writing this, the restaurant has only been open a couple of weeks, and i'll give them the benefit of the doubt and put it down to finding their feet. I would consider giving their lunch set menu option a try, which appeared better value.

In summary. We paid almost $700 for 9 people, each of whom had 2-3 drinks, a starter and a main each. Had there been no time limit on the booking, and had the service been a bit quicker in replenishing glasses, and allowing us to enjoy a dessert, I think we could have quite easily spent close to double that amount. We did notice that none of the tables outside were populated upon leaving the restaurant, however these weren't even offered as an option to enjoy a few drinks or a dessert. In the end, the restaurant lost out on the extra revenue, and our party left feeling unfulfilled. What could have been a win/win for both parties ended up...

Honestly, I had high expectations for Bocca. Its social media hype has definitely made a fool out of me. The food was average, service was terrible, and atmosphere awful! I ordered the octopus - it’s autumn and it was served as a cold dish in a watery flavoured liquid with sliced up octopus into thin chewy pieces… the mushrooms were also served cold and tasted like canned mushrooms. The meatball sauce was bland and watery. The only delicious thing was the garlic bread and beautifully presented. The service was terrible, our waitress sat us at our ‘assigned’ table in the middle of the extremely noisy restaurant on a huge round table for 3 ppl (the same size table next to us had 6ppl on it and was still roomy) we asked why we are at such a huge table for only 3 ppl. She honestly couldn’t be bothered making us feel comfortable and said ‘oh must of been when u made the booking and this is all we had…’ meanwhile a group of four next to us were squashed on the table. Our waitress could have made so much more money out of us, but failed to serve us, I had to ask for service constantly. Not once did she top up our water. Oh and she was also on her phone hiding near the bar or front counter. I’m so disappointed with Bocca and wondering if all the hype has made it huge and now they have really let it slip. Definitely won’t be recommending or going again. I actually hate negative reviews but don’t want anyone falling for this ‘Insta’ place! Oh p.s there is also no bathroom in the restaurant- you have to use the public toilets within the building complex, for such a ‘high end’ restaurant it really should have its...

Extremely underwhelming and overrated. Was looking forward to this place very much as it was quite hyped up on social media, but like the other restaurants run by the owners, the food delivered was mediocre for the price.

Have to admit the pizza dough and bread was quite good but the flavours of all the other menu items were lacking and disappointing

1. Gamberi pizza- only a few morsels of prawns were given and they were quite fishy in taste and the flavour of the tomato sauce was just not there, no flavour at all and the parsley oily was grassy and did not help at all with the fishyness of the pizza
2. marinated octopus- it was tender but again slightly fishy and mushy? Almost like it was frozen
3. Funghi pappardelle - this was good but you can get this dish anywhere and for $32 for the tiny portion size… not worth it
4. Tiramisu - was looking forward to this the most and was not satisfied at all. The savoiardi biscuits were barely soaked in any coffee and the cream was not creamy enough and was very monotone in flavour. Tasted exactly like the one from market bistro… at least try?
5. Chocolate torta- the waitress recommended this one, wish we didn’t taste it, was super dry and was like a brownie? But the chocolate flavour was just not there and basically was covered in cream and some berry purée
6. Burrata - really strange? Was expecting the usual mozzarella taste with that creamy stracciatella inside but the inside cream tasted almost like the fake vegetable oil cream you get sometimes with store bought cakes? You’re better off going to coles and buying the out of the jar.

Definitely...