Pino Vino e Cucina Alexandria

Went on a Sunday afternoon alone 1:30pm, no booking required. Nice bar and small restaurant with a great vibe. The buratta salad came promptly and it was delicious. There was this crunchy stuff which I think was salt it added a perfect texture abs saltiness to the salad, with the super fresh tomatoes. Bread and olive oil were given to us for starters which was great with two different types of bread and yummy olive oil. The grilled barramundi was one of the highlights for me. The macceronchini was a nice accompaniment. I look forward to coming back and trying other items on the menu. If you're into wine they do a wine of the week. They'll also offer you some specials as well.

My boyfriend booked us a Valentine's dinner date for the 15th and we were really looking forward to it. It was our first "traditional" date together. And we were excited to share a steak on the set menu. Unfortunately the restaurant apparently ran out of steak? Which fair enough on the day after the 14th. However, as a business wouldn't you account for a busy weekend? When we were informed we still ordered the set menu, to our own demise; expecting to have some great food. However instead we were met with underwhelming borderline sloppy food. Literally. The first thing to come out was four slices of bread (two bigger, two smaller???), and a buratta dish, which fortunately was about the only good thing we ate. However it took them around 35/40 minutes to bring it out to us. After for the pasta dishes, it took another 30 minutes?? We had a tomato crab pasta and a spicy pipi pasta. The crab in the tomato pasta was underwhelming and at the same time its flavour was overwhelming and took over the sauce. Not to mention the texture of it being extremely watery was off-putting and took away from the mouth feel one typically enjoys when eating crab. The pipi pasta had too many shells, not enough pipi meat and an overwhelming amount of green herbs that took away from any semblance of flavour in the sauce. And lastly because there were no steaks left, we settled with veal.....which at first was OK at most. and by our last bites the reality of our entire meal settled in, and we were doused in bitter disappointment. Lastly we ate an overly sweet tiramisu served on its side, exhausted much like us, after our pitiful experience. And for our cherry on top, they tried to charge us for bread that we didn't even order..... The last hoorah for this restaurant is their false advertising on uber eats for deals that apparently are nullified this week! We won't be returning and I suggest that if you value food, time with your partner or family that you take your dime and time elsewhere.

We visited for a belated Valentine’s Day reservation the day after, and were hoping to experience the same restaurant that we visited a year prior. The burrata was a great start and excited us for what would be a very disappointing dinner with each course worse than the last. The first course arrived 35 mins after we ordered and consisted of a watery crab macaroni and pippi spaghetti which was dull and bland. The mains: We were told that the table next to ours had ordered the last 1kg steak and were served a poor attempt at a veal schnitzel with coleslaw instead; This was served with a pair dish of more coleslaw?? With four pitiful pieces of citrus… The manager checked in on how the meal was progressing to which we gave our honest thoughts (diplomatically), he offered to serve the tiramisu as the dessert instead of the previous night’s valentines cake dessert. I’m glad that at the price point, we were offered fresh food instead of that from the night before… We had also planned in advance to use a voucher advertised on Uber Eats for 40% off up to $80 and were told that it was not valid this entire week (how convenient) and that we should come back and use it another day. This was okay except I noticed a line item charge for bread that we hadn’t ordered. Advertising was false, we made no fuss. Will obviously not be returning any time soon to use the voucher, we feel scammed.

What the hell happened to this restaurant? We came back after two years specifically for the steak we once enjoyed, only to be told on Valentine’s Day that there was no steak available and we were forced into a $119pp or $159pp set menu. There was a strict two-hour limit, yet we waited about 1.5 hours just for the food. Imposing a time limit while serving this slowly is unacceptable. The menu was confusing, the food was average at best, and some dishes were unbearably salty. For $159 per person, the “main” consisted of pork neck, snapper, and potato croquettes — no beef at all. It’s unbelievable that a restaurant would not offer any beef main on a Valentine’s Day menu, especially at this price point. The potato croquettes were unbearably salty. We also wanted the tiramisu we had years ago, but could only choose chocolate cake or strawberry cheesecake. The strawberry cheesecake was so hard it was like a brick, impossible to cut. Absolutely not worth the price. Very disappointing and we won’t be returning.

Food was average imo. I actually felt a bit bad when they cleared our plates because it must have been obvious we barely touched some of the dishes. The flavours were either a bit on the bland side or they just didn’t come together right. The wagyu tartare was the only thing I thought was decent, but they served it with only four chips — the ratio of meat to chips was honestly a little laughable. The staff did bring out a few extra when we asked, which was appreciated. Cocktails were okay but weak. I’m not even a drinker and usually one is enough to get me a little tips, but these barely did anything. We spent around $230 for two people: three appetisers, one main, one salad, and four drinks in total. Maybe we ordered the wrong things? I feel like we tried a good range of the menu, but unfortunately nothing really stood out. It was a Sunday night so it was pretty quiet, a lot of empty tables. I will say the place was super cosy/cute, I had a good night with my friend and staff were nice and attentive but would I go back? Probably not :/