Fratelli Paradiso — Restaurant in Sydney

There are better fine dining Italian restaurants in Sydney which I wished I went to instead.

I was excited to visit Fratelli Paradiso, a hatted restaurant serving my favourite cuisine, Italian. However, unfortunately my dining experience was unpleasant both on the food and service side and I won’t be visiting again.

Firstly when we arrived for our Saturday 8pm booking, we were seated at a shared bar table instead of getting the white table cloth service most other diners had. The stool was too high for the table so I had to lean over for most of the night and also didn’t have anywhere to hang my winter jacket. It was an awkward arrangement as we had to share the bar table with another couple.

Ordered the crumbed mozzarella with winter greens for starter. While I enjoyed the cheese (it was something different, never had mozzarella crumbed in this method), the winter greens were hard to swallow (literally) as they were over cooked and stringy.

Bread is not on the house, it is $5 a serve. We wanted to order a serve and got a basket of 4 slices of sourdough with holes so big in all slices that you could say we really only got 3 slices in total. I don’t think it’s acceptable to be serving slices like this, especially when you are charging for it. The bread was also stale, it would have been nice if it was warm upon serving.

For main course ordered the hyped spaghettini with scampi, cherry tomato, Napoli and bisque. The pasta itself was cooked well, but I wouldn’t say anything stand out. I was mostly disappointed that there wasn’t much depth to the sauce as I was expecting more ‘bisque’ flavours but it was mainly a napoli based tomato sauce in all honesty. Served with two scampi in the shell on the side and one piece of scampi in the pasta itself, it’s on the overpriced side. It would have been nice if the chef also cleaned up the plate before serving, presentation is everything in my opinion especially if it’s chef hatted. In comparison I had an amazing bisque spaghettini at Kindred (another chef hatted Italian restaurant in Sydney) which I wish was still on their menu as I was tossing up to go dine there instead that evening but chose Fratelli Patadiso instead.

Lastly, the service was appalling on the evening, staff were not attentive which was one reason why I didn’t bother complaining about the holey bread on the evening and partly also because I didn’t want to make a scene and also felt the staff wouldn’t have cared anyway. I tried to move my empty water glass to the edge of the table so a waiter could fill it up for me but that failed so I had to resort to asking a waiter to fill it up. Just not the level of attentiveness you would expect at a chef hatted restaurant in my opinion when you are paying these prices.

I’ve had far better Italian dining experiences (and pasta and bread for that matter) in Sydney (would highly recommend Kindred and A’Mare) that I would not recommend here and wished I had gone somewhere else. We were in and out within an hour of the venue, and coincidentally same as the couple that we had to ‘share’ the bar table with actually, so that could be saying...

We booked for our anniversary start at 6.45pm been told that it's a 2h sitting, we got there 15mn earlier and the server didn't greet us, he just asked us "do you have a table?" First of all he didn't greet us and second he couldn't find our booking. We requested on the booking for a table sitting at the booth, He sat us next to the bartender, narrow and uncomfortable place. Tables are super close to each other.

We were rushing the moment we sat down. The waitstaff cleared our plate too early as we haven't even finished yet. I asked for a sweet Margarita, the waitstaff told me that they don't do sweet Margarita, I myself was bartender and now work in Venu Management hospitality for 10 year in high end fine dining with famous chef based in Sydney. I've never heard someone said they cannot do a sweet Margarita. The waitstaff didn't apologise and rolled his eyes on us.

We ordered the pane, it was not fresh bread, really hard, and felt like it was yesterday bread.

However, the rest of the food we ordered was great at standard but nothing outstanding. The calamari was amazing, balanced, and verry well with the sauce and nice soft crunch texture. The Tagliatelle with lamb was delicious. Nice and fresh dough made. The ribeye was perfectly cooked, hat to the chef, potatoes was ok, nothing special. And the green salad had nice vinegrette flavor.

We ended up with the tiramisu, it was nice well made, delicious. But the moment we finished the last bite of the tiramisu, the waitstaff came and said " Are you done?" By asking twice. As he can see we were still holding our spoon and finishing up the last cream. He took the plate and straight away came with the efpot and the bill as we didnt ask for it and waited for us to pay. We didn't get the 2h sitting but only 1h15mn. We wanted to get more drinks as digestive but the waitstaff was really unprofessional. He seemed to work there for a really long time but really need to improve he work skills.

We gave $15 tip as me and my partner both work hospitality, we appreciate the kitchen work and other servers who were kind and friendly, but the one who serve us, looks like in the late 40s, short shaved hair, about 1.75m tall, no glasses, he did not deserve it.

We would come again for the foods would expect a better customer...

Our initial waiter who seated us was lovely (Lorenzo), but his colleague who looked after our table thereafter was not so. Not sure if it was the fact we weren't drinking (I am 8 months pregnant) and didn't go all out with starters (again pregnant so no cured meats or cheese for me), but he was arrogant and rude. The dishes we ate were actually quite nice, ravioli and lasagne both prepared and seasoned well. Unfortunatel my very last fork of lasagne I crunched down into something that crumbled, I had to spit out to see what it was as I thought it could have chipped a tooth. I pulled out some shell, which looked like shellfish. I left it on my fork so that the kitchen staff could be alerted. I let our waitstaff know and he completely ignored what I had said and asked if I wanted tiramisu. No acknowledgement, no apology on behalf of the kitchen. I'm sure he did not care to let them know. He looked at us and treated us as if we were cheap and would want a discount. Not the intention of letting him know. I'm an operations manager and we can't and won't improve without feedback. I don't think it's ok for any restaurant let alone a restaurant of Fratelli's calibre and price point for the portions. This was one of our last "nice" meals out together before our first child arrives. So I wanted to treat my partner (who is Italian). It's a shame it has been tainted with shellfish in our lasagne and such arrogant service. There are a few reviews to this nature and I can only guess it's the same wait staff. Maybe management don't care because they are only interested in people that spend the big bucks so they only nurture these patrons and their relationships. This is why Sydney get such a bad wrap for their snobby service in comparison to Melbourne restaurants. Who value all their patrons no mater from what 'walks of life' and everyone is treated equally. Wouldn't...