Fresh User Reviews for Italian in Gold Coast

7 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  7      Service  8      Value  6     

3 blokes dined here midweek recently. The highlight for me was the authentic italian service as we were made to feel very welcomed. The meals we chose were quite good with true italian flavours while the ambience was energetic and colourful in the heart of Broadbeach. Try it.

May 02, 2012

9 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  8      Service  10      Value  8     

Pork is superb along with the salt and pepper calamari. Give the spicy wagu meatballs a try, great! Pizza nice and light and crispy. All delicious. Service exceptional. Friendly staff very helpful. Nice ambience along Tedder avenue. Would thoroughly recommend.

Apr 07, 2012

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  7      Value  9     

We are local and our interstate friends wanted to go to dinner in Surfers. We really hadn't been into Surfers for some time, so we went to Nicolinis knowing they had been there for many years and still going strong. We all now know why. We had a great night, the food was fabulous, service was great and they have quite an extensive wine list which suited their menu well.

We have reaquainted ourselves with Surfers Paradise and also Nicolinis. Congratulations we will be back and will tell all our local friends to do the same.

Mar 22, 2012

8.3 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  8     

One of the best Italian restaurants I have been too - probably the best in QLD! The pasta, rack of lamb, veal and beef are to die for and although we had to wait a while (restaurant completely full) - it was worth it for top quality meals, excellent portions, awesome flavours. Will visit again every time we come to the Gold Coast from Sydney! Thank you Fellinis!

Mar 15, 2012

9 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  9      Service  9      Value  8     

I ate here about a week ago on a friday night, and ended up hanging around for a few drinks well into the night for their 'Ladies Night' not only was my food amazing but the service from both restaurant and bar staff was great.

Since the new owners have taken over (who introduced himself to me and our table!) the service has improved incredibly. I'll be going back there!

Mar 14, 2012

9.5 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  8      Service  10      Value  10     

Absolutely the best Avo/Salmon Eggs Benedict I've had anywhere, everything was fresh and perfectly prepared, even the presentation was lovely! Next time I'll take a pic before I start enjoying it!

Mar 14, 2012

9.5 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  10      Service  9      Value  9     

Great service and good value for money considering location. Romantic setting, friendly helpful attentive staff made the experience even better. Set back from crowds in alfresco setting, candlelight and nice wine selection topped with fresh pasta and sauces. Superb!

Feb 25, 2012

2.8 Below Average

Quality  1      Food  1      Drinks  6      Ambience  5      Service  1      Value  3     

Don't Bother! This restaurant used to have fantastic food and lovely management, we were frequent customers. Sadly that has changed for the worse.

We booked a birthday dinner and our night was spoiled by the terrible food, which was tasteless and took 90 minutes to arrive at our table, terrible service, slow, unfriendly staff, who completed the credit card transaction at our table (how rude) and took forever to take our orders, and the other staff - who forgot 2 meals and they said the kitchen was small, that's why things were taking so long. Totally unbelievable! There were only about 15 people in the restaurant!

At the end of the night, the only compensation made was not charging for a meal that was forgotten (I should think so!) and giving us 2 bottles of water free of charge, how pathetic. The management did not even come to apologise and tried to ignore us as we left.

The Birthday dinner was a total disaster, our night was ruined and I was embarrassed for inviting everyone there. After one of our party contacted the management about our poor experience, he was given a short sharp reply that was a personal attack, rather than an apology or explanation. Clearly the management have no concern about the quality or reputation of their restaurant.

We will never go back there again, and I urge any potential customers to stay away. If you want good food and exceptional service, go somewhere else at Sanctuary Cove.

Feb 21, 2012

7.5 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  9      Service  8      Value  6     

We tried their valentines day 3 course menu. It was ok, until we found a hair in my girlfriends chicken. Pretty gross and ruined the overall experience. When I showed the hair to the senior staff, they really didn't seem to care. I won't be eating there again.

Feb 14, 2012

9.5 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  9      Service  10      Value  9     

What can I say? Food is excellent and the staff did a fantastic job. Great value for money and good kids menu. Thoroughly enjoyed our outing at Blu Grotto on Tedder Ave. Look Forward to our next visit. Cheers

Feb 12, 2012

6.3 Average

Food  6      Ambience  7      Service  6      Value  6     

Average food, average service. 6 of us had dinner here. Some dishes lacked flavour, one was drowned in oil. There was absolutely nothing flash about this place. Perhaps, pizzas are their specialty? The waiters were distracted by the entertainment in the mall and forgot they had customers to wait on. There are much better places to eat at in Broadbeach. Disappointing.

Feb 09, 2012

7.5 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  6     

Not a bad place to go for dinner. The food and service are both good. Maybe not the best value but you are eating in Boardbeach we will be back.

Jan 18, 2012

1.3 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  2      Service  1      Value  1     

Absolutely terrible. I would go as far to say it is the worst food and service I have ever experienced. Firstly ordered two pizzas. They were utterly disappointing. The pizzas bases were obviously specials bought from Coles (right behind this restaurant). Topping? Not really, obviously they don't know to use mozzarella cheese or melting cheese because it was all clumpy and cold. Want prawns on your pizza? Forget it unless you want to Peel your own prawns from the pizza, do these kitchen staffs have any idea? For $22 this was the worst money I have ever spent.

Also ordered a salmon dish, ended up with flathead and they even tried to charge us for it. When we mentioned it was the wrong dish they offered to give us a 15% discount, fair enough, until we got the bill. Our bill was completely wrong and they have even charged us for more expensive dished that we didn't order. When we asked for them to amend the bill, the main woman in charge was extremely rude and took another 10 minutes to amend the bill, which was wrong yet again, actually more than the first bill as she took our 15% discount off.

And one final thing, where do they take their table water from - the chevron pool? Tasted like pure chlorine. Absolutely disgusting excuse for a restaurant.

Jan 04, 2012

6.3 Average

Food  6      Ambience  6      Service  6      Value  7     

Coming from Sydney, I love Crust it's almost a ritual night in dinner. Though all crust I have ever been to in Sydney I loved, this would not be par to crust standards. The recipe is slightly different especially the pesto sauce on the vegetarian. I think with time, they should get the hang of it. But the base is close to crust perfect.

Dec 22, 2011

2 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  5      Service  1      Value  1     

We came here after a friend raved about how great the food was. I ordered a penne arabiatta, the penne was hard, no not al dente, hard. I had to pay for extra parmesan, which is a standard accompaniment to any pasta. There was more chilli in it than a curry and there was no flavour to the dish. I never add salt to any of my food but found myself constantly adding salt to every mouthful. All 3 friends accompanying me had the same issues with the pasta and lack of flavour. The bruschetta is a miniature serving for a full price. Thoroughly disappointed.

Dec 20, 2011

4 Below Average

Food  4      Ambience  4      Service  4      Value  4     

Sorry to disappoint the admirers of this restaurant but we didn't have the best experience there this evening. We are staying at a complex around the corner and wanted to dine in a nice Italian restaurant for our 7 year wedding anniversary, so we looked nicolini up on this site, read the reviews and decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So off we went with our 11 month old in tow. We ordered a Shiraz and their signature cocktail (not sure what it is called but it had lemon sorbet, champagne and vodka in it). The waiter tried to talk me out of it saying it is very sweet and would ruin my meal, but I love sweet drinks. Anyway, I told him it should be fine for me and he agreed to make it. With that order of drinks we ordered a small tropical pizza and asked them to bring that as soon as possible for our fussy, teething little one (we'll try anything at this stage).

So off he went while we were trying to decide which pizza dish to order and the waiter comes back with my drink saying that he changed the drink to make it more bitter. It tasted nice but I really would have prefered to make that decision for myself.

Anyway we ordered 2 pasta dishes and were told that they would probably come out before the pizza because the pizza guys had large take away orders. After a few minutes though the pizza arrived and it was delicious. The pasta dishes slowly followed. As my husband was digging through his fettucini marinara he saw something that at first glance he thought was a twig of dried thyme or something but as he moved it kind of shined.

To our surprise it was a piece of metal. It was a curly piece of jex or steelo about half an inch or so long. That just did it for us. The manager came around, apologized, took that dish and the drinks off the bill and hoped we would be ok with that.
Well, my worry was my little one. What if we gave him some of that dish to taste and he swallowed the metal! We left very disappointed. Would not recommend.

Dec 11, 2011