Pastizzi Cafe

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Posted 2012-10-01 by Justine Crowley ⇒ follow

along King Street in trendy Newtown can get really busy on a Saturday afternoon. Do not expect to find the most friendliest or award winning customer service staff here. Instead, find yourself here with great company, food and coffee. If you're happy with these three elements and you don't give two hoots about the service, then welcome to .

This cafe is also a catering house. They cater for a variety of different occasions for both corporate and private clients. They also act as a wholesaler for fine Italian pastizzis, pastas and cannolis to name. Your orders must be placed at last 24 hours in advance prior to delivery for this purpose.

I was here recently on a Saturday afternoon to catch up with a friend of mine. I nabbed us a wooden table at the back. The only problem (apart from the service) is that the shop is terribly small. I was going to head for the table in front of us, yet it felt a bit claustrophobic at the best of times. Never mind.

Naturally my friend went for a couple of pastizzis ($2 each) and the serving sizes were rather generous. For lunch, I went for the pesto prawns ($13.50) and although the prawns were delicious, the sauce overpowered the prawns. There was more salty pesto sauce than they were well cooked, juicy prawns. I get that, prawns are not cheap at the moment. The fair few that I did enjoy made this experience worth it. I was also given some sourdough bread to soak up the sauce, yet I wasn't in the mood. The prawns more than filled me up. Due to the saltiness of the sauce, I was incredibly thirsty.

Our food and our lattes (coffees are $2.80 each) came out first. No regrets, the coffee was well brewed and roasted, and as you know the food was quite good. We also asked for a jug of water to share, yet I had to ask twice for the latter. This was not good as I was super thirsty due to the pesto sauce in my lunch. I was relaxed once the water finally arrived.

Although the latte was great, it was a bit too milky and I was heading for a few sachets of raw sugar to sweeten the taste. There was no bitter taste as such. The sugar just alleviated the milkiness a bit. Never mind. The company was excellent, and this friend of mine covered a lot of ground. Needless to say, these lattes are (no doubt) the cheapest brews you can find on this side of Newtown.

The service side of things could do with a bit more work. I mean, who would give you a menu upside down? This happened to both my friend and I. Next time I come here I will try a pastizzi or another smaller dish instead, and with a cold drink apart from water. I appreciate this European establishment has had problems in the past, and there is a bit of work to do to improve the service. Keep the great prices and trendy ambience otherwise.