Matteo Downtown — Restaurant in Sydney

I recently went here with a group for my partner's birthday dinner.

We ordered both the rosemary flat bread and the house made sourdough, focaccia and grissini – Definitely preferred the flat bread! The smooth ricotta that comes with the flat bread was so good. Same goes for the signature butter with the sourdough, focaccia and grissini.

SCHIACCIATINA AL ROSMARINO – 5/5. PANE – 3.75/5, definitely prefer the flatbread, but I really liked the butter that came with this.

The burrata was pretty up to par with what you'd expect. You can’t go wrong ordering burrata. Even though this may sound silly, the tomatoes were very refreshing and paired well with the bread. Serving was on the smaller side I would say, but we ordered two servings of it as was in a small group. The prosciutto and bufala didn’t have a generous serving of prosciutto, but if you order bread and burrata, I like having prosiutto.

BURRATA – 4/5. PROSCIUTTO & BUFALA – 3.75/5.

The crispy squid, prawns, Hokkaido scallops lemon was sooo good! I think was the highlight of the entrees we ordered. Definitely would recommend ordering if you go here! It wasn’t too deep fried tasting and also wasn’t too fishy.

FRITTO MISTO – 5/5, must try!

With our pastas, the spaghetti was nice and light. Not too heavy. The spaghetti was a little hard, but I think that was intentional (al dente?). The prawns were very fresh and did like this! The rigatoni vodka was awesome! I may be a little biased, because have always enjoyed rigatoni vodka where ever it’s offered and have ordered it. Instead of ordering two servings of the same pasta, we got the rigatoni vitello which was also good, but probably my least favourite of the pasta dishes. This dish had some left over so guessing the group also wasn’t feeling this dish.

SPAGHETTI AL GAMBERO – 4/5. RIGATONI VODKA – 5/5. RIGATONI VITELLO – 3.5/5.

I’ve found that whenever I’ve eaten at fancier Italian restaurants the pizzas are generally pretty soggy… I don’t mind it too much but just a little annoying because makes it difficult to eat and the toppings always fall off. The Diavola was a little spicier than I was expecting with the spicy cream it had, but not too spicy that I didn’t enjoy it. Just had a bit of a kick. I preferred the Suprema but again, may be biased as always enjoy potato, sausage and mushrooms on a pizza. We were pretty full so didn’t get through all of the pizzas, but think I enjoyed the pizza more than the pasta.

DIAVOLA – 4.5/5. SUPREMA – 5/5.

Overall, there wasn’t any dishes we didn’t enjoy. It was just disappointing that service wasn’t the best. After ordering drinks and entrees, they never came back to get our mains ordered till we had to try and get their attention on multiple occasions. We ordered a few cocktails as well and the first round of cocktails didn’t taste the same as the second round? Haha. I’d definitely recommend to others and would go back to dine. Giving 4/5 stars only due to the service, but otherwise the...

Great food, great drinks, friendly staff BUT poor service

I wanted to love this restaurant, as the food and beverages were fantastic and the decor was nice. The staff were friendly but I couldn’t look past the pretty bad service. The prices are pretty steep and the poor service made me resent the price I paid.

What type of poor service? Two separate times during the dinner I asked for a glass of wine and each time I sat there waiting 20 minutes or so before I could catch the staff’s attention to remind them. In fact, I ate the whole entree without a drink at all. I tried to eat slowly but they just took too long. It also happened separately with water. After finishing my entree and main, each time the plate sat in front of me for a really long time before they cleared my plates. They also didn’t ask me if I wanted anything else, not even dessert (which I did want, but I gave up, left and had dessert when I got home). They wouldn’t have meant it, but it made me feel like they didn’t care about me. It kind of spoilt the experience.

That out of the way, let’s start with the basics/fundamentals:

Cuisine - modern Australian. The had a special truffles inspired menu the night I dined there.

Location - Bond Street, Sydney. Ok spot.

Price range - On the pricey side. $30-40 for an entree. $55-70 for a main. Wine was quite expensive but good. It would have all been worth it if it wasn’t for the poor service.

Alcohol - Very very nice wines. Only one champagne by the glass ($34 per glass). Some really nice cocktails.

Reservations - I was a walk in but they take bookings.

Family friendly - hmm probably not young children.

Groups? - yes, but book.

Ambience and design - nice decor and feel. Good background music. Good variety of tables and spaces.

Now the important things:

Food quality - this is where they get my 5 stars! It was all delicious. This is what I ordered: natural oysters - good, fresh and interesting and classic accompaniments Kingfish crudo - fresh, delicious and complimentary flavours Angel hair pasta with shaved truffle - super delicious! Simple but perfectly cooked.

Value for money - I would have said if the service was better.

Service - I think I said enough already. The staff though was really nice and friendly. They just weren’t very good. And for what you are paying, they need to be better. It could be a training issue or maybe they were short of staff or maybe it was just a bad night. Still spoilt the evening for me.

Overall - I would come again, hoping the service would be better, especially as the food was soooo good and the wine menu above average. But I would probably only give them one more chance before...

The whole experience was really disappointing. It was clear to us that the staff, including the manager, did not care about our experience at all. Our waitress forgot multiple things throughout the night (both drinks and food weren't put through) and while it was fine for us to re-order the missing items, she didn't acknowledge the mistakes (and instead acted like it was our fault) and it felt really negative and unnecessary having to chase up with other waiters who would bring over our items.

The atmosphere in this place is awful — Really pretentious for somewhere that sells pizza — Though this is likely more because of their regular crowd in Double Bay more than the restaurants intention. But the vibes are almost laughable for how high end everyone is acting like this restaurant is when you are here for pizza and pasta! The food is fine but there are better Italian spots in Sydney.

Finally, my regular drink order is an old fashioned, which was off menu (to be expected). An old fashioned is normally made on bourbon but I swap it for the house scotch. I do this everywhere I go and have never had an issue, since the price of a house bourbon and a house scotch are always comparable however when I got the bill, each old fashioned was priced at $42! Double what I would normally be. I asked why and the waitress explained that the bar normally use a really low-grade bourbon (!) in their cocktails and scotch would cost double.

The old fashioned I received was average at best, even with scotch, and were very inconsistent — I ordered two (one for my husband) and it was completely different colour and much stronger than mine. I contested that price, hoping to have been informed before ordering, and the poor waitress had to go back and forth to the manager who was refusing to acknowledge it 🙄 I could have bought the whole bottle of scotch for less than they were charging me for 2 cocktails! They ended up offering a $25 discount which I appreciated, bring each cocktail down to $30.

It was my friend's birthday and it just felt really disappointing to have so many issues in one dinner and for the staff to have not cared at all. I...