Casa Mia Osteria — Restaurant in Sydney

We chose Casa Mia Osteria for our NYE due to its good ratings and location near Sydney Park. We hoped to get a good feed in, catch the 9pm fireworks, and head home before the crowds got heavy. Alas, this was not to be.

We booked for 7:30 and arrived at 7:15 seeing that the restaurant was already busy. Upon checking in, the waitress serving us was not able to locate our reservation as the bookings had been transferred to a written book despite having an online system? I had to show my reservation which needed to be confirmed with management before we could be seated. An omen for things to come.

It was obvious that the waitstaff were severely overwhelmed. There were only two of them working and managing a full house, but it looked a lot more like the male waiter was carrying the load of the restaurant.

At 7:30 we placed our drinks order and were informed that there would be a small wait due to the rush which we were fine with.

The wait was not small.

We did not get our drinks until 8:15 and the waiter had to rush away before we could place our food order. It was not easy to get attention. We tried to get the waitress to help serve us as it seemed like she wasn’t doing much work at all.

I don’t want this to seem like I’m picking on this waitress just because she wasn’t serving us directly, but it was apparent that her efforts to maintain the rush of people were minimal at best. There would be times that she would take an order to the POS machine and scratch her head a bit until the other waiter would come and take over with his hands full of plates to be washed.

Around 8:30, 30 minutes until closing, I got her attention to let her know we were ready to place our order. Her response was to look confused and reply “um, okay… I don’t know” before walking off. It wasn’t until just before 9pm on the dot that the male waiter was able to take our order. He did apologise, citing that two staff members were suddenly absent and they were overwhelmed. You’d hope that knowing this she would have acted with more initiative.

One customer let her know about the toilet having run out of toilet paper and by the time I went to use the bathroom, it was not restocked and the male waiter had to pass it to me through the door – can you imagine. I felt more sorry for the two of us in that moment than I ever have for anyone else all year. At this point, I have a bigger bone to pick with management than the staff themselves. I did not see an extra person come out and help with the front of house management nor did I see a manager make an appearance to the tables.

I would assume a hospitality venue open on New Year’s Eve near a popular vantage point would have a contingency for staff absences to prevent the complete overwhelm of customers. Just because the team managed to do it doesn’t mean it's fair to the (one) waiter and the customers to bear the strain. It was incredibly frustrating to have to wait a full hour and 30 minutes to even get our food and have our initial plan be compromised.

As for the food, we had ordered the Garlic Rosemary Focaccia, Linguine Marinara, and Pork Sausage Pizza. These were fine. If you’re after standard Italian flavours like fennel, tomato, fish, and carbs – you’ll certainly get them. The focaccia was generous, and the pizza was reasonably sized but the pasta was quite small. The presentation wasn’t much to write home about either. We planned on complaining about the experience but ended up not saying anything because the disappointment from not receiving any compensation for the poor experience prior was enough to make you want to give up and leave.

You would hope that if you made a reservation at 7:30 but not being fed until 9 would entitle you to at minimum, a discount, you’ll be mistaken apparently. The food was nice but not worth $140 and the wait.

In the future, I hope Casa Mia Osteria makes a better effort to be more prepared for absences during major events and that the management would make itself more present front of house for a better working and dining experience for...

Wanted to say a special thanks to Sam and Chef at Casa Mia - it's my favourite restaurant in the Inner West, especially for authentic beautiful Italian food. I am a regular here, because I LIVE to see amazing food and service done so well / in style like that. I get a bit annoyed to see other reviews that are like - the service is slow sometimes- well yeah, if you have 10-30 people descend on your restaurant at the same time with no bookings and you've already got tables running in-house, anyone in service or out of it knows there's going to be a bit of a wait on those occasions my friend (I've been there many times myself, and when people walk in, they clearly advise a time frame of how long they expect the time to be) - Sydneysiders can be so spoilt sometimes wanting everything same second, in a rush. Good food takes a bit of time to make with love. They're a family outfit, like....be a bit kind. When it comes to the food - You've never had burrata like they make it here in your whole entire life. They source so many beautiful ingredients from Italy & all over, you can taste it in every bite. Little pricier, but the quality is so deeply worth that. It costs them to import ingredients, don't forget that. If you just want Domino's level quality - then it's not for you. The dough for the pizza at Casa Mia is so good, it'd bring tears to your mother's eyes and make you feel like you never ate a pizza before - it did mine! I'm grateful they kindly tailor the prosciutto and burrata pizza when I ask and add spicy salami and fresh garlic for me, mangia bene from actual heaven. Boscaiola / other dishes use guanciale, not bacon, the sauces and pastas are fresh, silky and immaculate. Bruschetta and Burrata Caprese salad and garlic herb focaccia, second to none. Had the shared menu too and it was 1000% delightful, the team went out of their way to tailor the experience to our party, and it made our night. I bring my friends here. I bring my family here. I personally go regularly. They remember you and take care of their patrons. It's just that type of place. You often see walk ins who clearly had no intention of really eating out who look in the window, catch the vibes and just can't walk away (that's where you get the slightly longer waits at times when they get swamped out of nowhere, just chill out a bit Sydney). It has to be seen and felt to be understood, and I love that. If you have any background in fine dining service, which I do - this place is just a cut above in how they're doing it anywhere else - everything adds to / contributes to your enjoyment of the space and they take care of you like family. In Italy, there's a saying - ‘Anni, amori e bicchieri di vino, nun se contano mai.”’ ‘“Years, lovers and glasses of wine; these things must not be counted.’ That saying really reminds me of this place. Last but not least - the wine list is amazing - make sure you try a few different glasses of things as you get time, they've got a wonderful selection. Many thanks to your team for your hard work and all the amazing food, will definitely be...

Pros: The woodfired pizza

Cons: x Took over 25 minutes to order drinks and that's because we had to flag down a staff member. Unsure why because at the time, there was only one other table occupied in the entire restaurant.

x Was told to "calm down" by the manager on arrival because our group of friends were excited and hadn't seen each other in months. So rude!!

x The food order equally took just as long as the drinks and again, we had to chase someone to make an order. We ordered 5 pasta dishes, a pizza and side salad. Waitress was new but repeated the order twice and the manager stood behind listening. The food came out minus 2 pasta dishes and when we followed up 10 mins later, we were told they were "1 minute away". Followed up again 15 minutes later to find out they had been cancelled?! We explained that we never cancelled the food and would like our meals but we would not be paying for them given that the rest of our party had finished their food ages ago and we had been waiting for an incredibly long time.

x Food finally comes out and was sub par to say the least. Gnocchi was definitely not fresh.

x Offered free limoncello spritzers as an apology but that "gesture of goodwill" was abruptly ruined when a random kitchen staff member appeared out of no where to take payment and then became incredibly aggressive when we asked him to remove $60 off the bill. He then stropped off and asked for the rude manager to deal with it. Reminded both that we had clearly communicated we wouldn't be paying for these items but the manager refused to remove both and instead took off just 1 dish.

Working within the hospitality industry means that you have to be open to constructive criticism. To therefore comment on my friends fair and justified review that we had some sort of hidden agenda to get free food and state that we cannot afford a meal is not only highly insulting and inappropriate but further confirms our narrative that your service and attitude is absolutely abysmal.

If you are looking for authentic and fresh Italian with decent service, I highly suggest looking at Arte Bianca and Caffe Roma. The atmosphere will certainly be much better than just 3 occupied tables, you won't get judged on what you can apparently afford or be accused of having a...