Cucina Viscontini

Okay wow. With only 65% of my tastebuds operational after a cold this week, I comforted myself with pasta for dinner being too sick to go to THFCvSYD. Campanelle porcini — simply amaze. So much flavour, perfectly cooked pasta with crab meat and porcini mushrooms. Yum! Better than the pizza for sure. This is a bad thing too, I live a 2min walk from this place!

This is a lovely, authentic italian style restaurant & café attached to an all italian deli, liquor & retail store. It is your one stop shop for all things Italian and my word it did not disappoint. We were seated here at about 1:15pm on a Saturday and although there were plenty of people seated, there was still plenty of room for us. It is quite a large restaurant with plenty of seating inside & out and is located in the «Waterfront» complex in Wentworth Point.
Almost immediately, I was captivated by the European style décor & authentic atmosphere that came with it. The staff seemed to be all Italian and were full of cheer & passion. The restaurant was playing italian music quite softly in the background which again contributed to the cultured atmosphere. We were waited on immediately and had a couple of coffees ordered & served to the table within minutes. These were excellent but the fresh orange juice that followed with the food was a class above the rest.
The menu is very comprehensive and almost all Italian with variety in meats, salads, entrees, mains, desserts & the rest. The pricing is a touch on the high side at around $ 20 an entrée and $ 30+ a main but the dishes epitomise value for money. Although we were disappointed to hear that the 3 stuffed vegetables entrée was not available, the bruschetta, grilled octopus with salad & garlic prawns in chilli tomato sauce dissolved that slight disappointment instantaneously. The food was absolutely incredible & full of flavour, and the wood-​fried italian bread (Pana di Casa) was pure crispy & crunchy goodness. The presentation was sensational and the portion sizes were impressive, especially being that they were considered entrees.
Our food was on our table within 15 minutes of ordering & it was in our stomachs in even less time than that. We stepped up to the counter to pay our share and came across the small display of fresh italian style desserts. Considering the sweet ricotta cannoli was staring right at me, I just couldn’t resist and left with a roadie cannoli. Not only that, upon exit I had a stroll through the retail side of the store & was delighted to see a vast variety of biscotti, cured meats & imported Italian wines available for purchase. After adding a beautiful 2007 Tuscan red to my collection, we were on our way — by the way, the cannoli was outstanding!
Overall, there’s not a bad thing I could say about Cucina Visontini. In fact, if I didn’t know where I was, I could have been mistaken into thinking I was overseas. Our experience wasn’t just a great meal with excellent service & a bottle of wine to enjoy another time, it was truly cultural appreciation. It has become easy to generalise Italian restaurants but make no mistake, Cucina Viscontini is the real deal. For a taste of Italy, I respectfully demand that you try this place, you will be thankful you did so!

Food was good. Decent size for lunch. Nice pasta with generous amounts of seafood. Staff were a bit flaky, but they at least realized I’d saying they’d only come back from holidays. Would go back again if I was in the area but I wouldn’t go out of they way to eat here

Food is good. Coffee is terrible. I’m never coming here again though, for the rude, unwelcoming, and condescending service and staff.