Perth Food Review

I hate to submit a bad review for a restaurant and generally prefer to save my words for places that I actually want other people to visit, however Ruocco's in South Fremantle really should come with a warning.

My sister and I showed up on a freezing, rainy evening and found the restaurant about half-full, which we took to be a good sign. On seating us and providing menus, however, the waitstaff left us alone for almost 15 minutes before coming anywhere near the table to take a drinks or food order. When we finally flagged down a waitress laden with dirty plates and asked to have our orders taken, she said "oh, s#*t, no order yet"?, and promptly placed the dirty dishes on a nearby empty table to take our order (where they stayed for the duration of our meal).

We both ordered pasta dishes from the fairly extensive Italian-style menu - me, the gnocchi gorgonzola and my vegetarian sister the spaghetti carbonara minus bacon. Then, we waited.

We waited whilst the three other tables around us received food and drinks.

We waited whilst two of those tables were cleared.

And we waited whilst the folding screen dividing our table from the next dining area (cutting out the vision but not the sounds of an exceptionally noisy Italian family gathering) fell on us. Twice, in fact, while the 2 staff behind the bar watched and laughed at our misfortune.

Then, finally, our meals arrived. Two enormous servings of pasta, one of them unfortunately covered in bacon (probably a great thing if you didn't order the vegetarian version!). So back went the meals to the kitchen - mine, to sit under a heat-lamp and my sister's to be re-made.

This time the dishes were a little faster, although we did have to ask again for our drinks, which finally arrived midway through the second try of our food. We could only assume that the barstaff were too busy laughing at diners to do any work.

Food-wise, my gnocchi wasn't too bad in texture but could have done with a little more of the promised gorgonzola flavour. The carbonara was well-flavoured (which can be an issue when ordering it without the salty hit of the bacon), but the eggs in the sauce had been cooked over too high a heat and were 'scrambled' in little chunky bits throughout the pasta. And, as earlier stated, both dishes were huge and could have served two people instead of one.

Ruocco's is reasonably priced (around $15-$16 for pastas, a little more for pizzas) and the food is pass-able for a casual night out, however the abominable, indifferent service and lack of attention to detail ensured that this is somewhere we won't be returning to anytime soon. There are a multitude of other Italian-style restaurants in the Fremantle area with better food and service for your money.

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