La Botte D'Oro Restaurant — Restaurant in Sydney

As a long standing resident of Leichhardt, I’m always interested when an established restaurant embarks on a revamp. The first time I frequented La Botte D’Oro was in 1993 - so there have been many changes and iterations to what it is now. We had dinner there about 4 years ago and it was fairly unremarkable, but recently seeing the wood fired oven aglow and crackling away in the afternoon, it occurred to me that it’s changed hands or management since our last visit.

Let me get the annoying stuff out of the way first. This is a neighbourhood local, suitable for families or couples to grab a bottle of their favourite red and have an enjoyable authentic midweek dinner. It’s not fine dining, it’s accessible. Having said that, most of us are happy to pay a reasonable amount for corkage, even $10 a bottle isn’t a stretch, so when we learned how LBD calculates the corkage charge, we were a little taken aback. So here’s how it works, $6 a bottle plus $6 per person.

Say there are 6 of you for dinner and you bring 4 bottles between you - that’s $6 x 6 people - $36, plus $6 x 4 bottles - $24, total $60 for the table. It is a little excessive, you could easily throw the glasses out and replace them with new ones twice over if you’re saving on the washing up, which is presumably what the corkage is supposed to subsidise. To the best of my investigations, this corkage charge isn't mentioned on the menu, the drinks list or their website so we were fortunate that one of our guests thought to ask.

In fairness, the manager told us that for regulars he could come to an arrangement for a particularly special bottle or two, but in the interim we ordered from the restaurant’s wine list - not too many choices, but judge for yourself. Personally, if I were running the restaurant, I’d be offering a flat $5 per bottle corkage midweek, and hike it up on weekends, and I would promote that - simple business strategies to fill the restaurant. If several other restaurants in Leichhardt and Haberfield can get it right (Haba Ocean, Monte, Bistro Cocotte, 7ettimo) surely they can get creative. We ordered some whitebait which was pretty good (the larger variety, not the delicate NZ version). We also had Zeppole, doughy little pastry balls filled with prosciutto etc, I’d skip those and keep the carb allocation for the pizzas which were pretty good, as were the Sicilian olives. The boys would have appreciated a little more sausage on their Petrini pizza, which isn’t unreasonable when you’re paying $25 for a medium sized pizza.

I would give this another try, especially if they sort out the corkage situation, but two of our party wouldn’t. I still think it’s worth trying at least once.

EDIT. I was contacted by the manager this morning who was mortified that his staff had somehow bungled the question of corkage - apparently I wasn’t the only one who was given the wrong information. The positive thing is that the manager bothered to read the review, found my booking, called me and made an effort to resolve the situation. It’s not up to me to clarify what their corkage is, I’ve suggested that they make the actual charges clear on their website to avoid confusion, and he’s committed to...

My friend used to live in Leichhardt a few years ago and La Botte D'Oro was a regular for us. We now both live in Kurrajong, but found ourselves needing an early dinner before a show in the city. We thought we'd try our luck at La Botte. We arrived before opening, to check if they could seat us. They were fully booked, but were kindly able to make room for us at opening time, giving us over an hour to dine.

Once we entered the restaurant, we saw that it had had a wonderful renovation. The staff and owner Gabriele, were very welcoming and informative - they knew about the food! The menu had ample faves of ours. Between the three of us, we ordered the Margherita pizza, Panozzo al Crudo (and amazing sandwich using the crust of the pizza as the bread component) and Linguine Carbonara.

The food came out quickly and it was delicious! The wood fired pizza was Neapolitan style with its super thin base, puffed crust and simple but quality sauce and mozzarella (and basil). Easily one of the best pizzas I have eaten (and I have eaten many!) My friend thoroughly enjoyed her Panozzo al Crudo, again with quality ingredients including prosciutto. Finally, the Linguine Carbonara was the best we'd had. Made traditionally with egg yolks, pecorino and fried guanciale (cured pork cheek). The fat of the guanciale is the magic ingredient as it gives the eggs a creamy texture. It was perfection in a bowl! We did not get photos as we were too excited too eat, but I can assure you, the food looked as good as it does on their Instagram. Thank you so much to the chefs and pizzaiolo.

It was over an hours drive for us, but we can't wait to go back...for the incredible food and the wonderful service....

Came here for dinner last week with mine and my partner’s family to celebrate them being home for a short visit. Wanted to show them a nice local place in Leichhardt, thought that this restaurant looked great. Had a bit of time to think before making this review but thought it was important to share for others thinking of coming here, considering all the other options around.

About 30 mins after ordering, we received our starters of garlic and bruschetta pizza. Delicious.

Sadly, we waited more than an hour and a half after that for our meals - if you could call them that. When our dishes arrived, they were sad and watery, my bolognese sauce was more like a thin, tasteless tomato soup. The same happened with another’s “vodka pasta”.

What was most upsetting was that the staff completely avoided us throughout the 2 hours we were there, beyond giving us water when we asked or briskly dropping off the food (once - the starter pizzas). Then, there wasn’t a single apology, just a hasty, half-hearted excuse when we asked where our dinner was. They had the gall to wish us a “good night” without any acknowledgement of our experience. They didn’t even ask!

We definitely won’t be back again, and we think it’s such a shame that such an institution - according to the gorgeous family story on the menu - was a...