Piccolina — Restaurant in Whau

The review will be based purely on the visit today. As I have visited a few times just doing takeaway of their display cabinet food. And the quality of their bread is amazing! However, today’s experience was a bit of a let down. Their creamy mushroom dish was pretty much what it is stated by the dish name. Massive portion of mushroom paired with a poached egg and some croutons. As you eat this dish it just becomes overly heavy with just the cream taste and one dimensional. Maybe adding a piece of bread and giving less mushroom might have been better? As it just got too salty to take down when mushroom was the only thing I was left with after consuming the egg. Wife had order the baguette with ham and cheese and additional season green on the side. Funny enough the season green came first with my mushrooms and they obviously forgot to toast the baguette so it came close to 10 mins after. My wife had to tell them to bring it to her as she saw the baguette just sitting on their toaster for a long time. As you would imagine the baguette was very crunchy from over toasting and the cheese inside was overall melted. Not an ideal service for a cafe that’s only opened for a few weeks and when the place was probably only half full at the time. Will probably back for their bakery food but not so sure about the dine in part. Wanted to give them a 2.5 overall but the option is...

Piccolina is fairly new and it is usually busy when I drive past it. It is close to the Pataki Road and Rosebank Road roundabout on/off ramp. The building is fairly easy to spot since there are signs outside by the road. There were quite a few parking spots outside. It was quite empty when we went, not like the other times driving by. They have a fairly small menu but they also have quite a few cabinet food treats which you walk past when you come in. I tried the chicken basket and the iced chocolate extravaganza. The iced chocolate was tasty and quite chocolatey. The brownie in it was also quite nice. The fried chicken basket was a plate of fried chicken. I was expecting it to have some sort of side like a potato basket but it was just the fried chicken. The chicken was juicy and quite crispy. The ranch that came with it was nice too. We also grabbed some pastries to take home for afternoon tea. I quite liked the custard almond croissant. The dulce de leche donut only had the dulce de leche on top, I was expecting it to be filled with it but it had custard instead. That was unfortunate since the dulce de leche was quite tasty. The donut itself was soft though. It was quite a nice cafe for food. The dining area was quite nice and the cabinet food had a large range to choose from. The food...

Summary: food okay, varying degrees of professionalism from staff.

The cabinet food is beautifully presented but there are no prices for anything! When I asked about this, the lovely young staff member behind the counter (who mentioned she was new) came around to our side and indicated prices - very helpful and appreciated.

A different staff member took our order. She seemed to be the manager. Unfortunately she was in a sour mood - sighing, not looking at us, very much presenting "I don't want to be here". I felt sorry for her and it was awkward to be served by her.

The young girl who we originally dealt with did our table service and she was delightful.

The food was presented very well and was nice to eat but nothing outstanding. This is especially true for the sweet cabinet items which look amazing but quite bland in flavour and texture.

I would come back here, but in it's current state it wouldn't be my...