bicicletta

brought the whole family along for dinner and was told 'no worries' re baby, we have baby seats which they do, heaps of them but no where to change a baby. when i asked if there was a changetablewas told to use the bench in the mens toilet!! thanks for that. had to ask for our drinks 3 times but food was ok - very mediocre experience.

popped in for lunch with my partner as we were in the area. we had eaten here before when the hotel that it is located in (peppers) had a different name.

the food is good but we did not think anything stood out.

we had a salmon salad, calamari and beef carpaccio.

the salad was well seasoned and not too dry and not too oily - a good balance. the salmon was just below room temperature which allowed the subtle flavours that make smoked salmon a favourite for me.

the batter in the calamari was not crunch. it was soft which added to the calamari being juicy and tender - and the batter was not overly oily. the battered jalapeños were great - certainly spicey and giving a nice warm sensation but no hot chilli burn. highly recommend you try this.

the carpaccio was a little dry. some high quality premium extra virgin olive oil to add a little flavour and exture to the dish was the only thing missing for me.

the spaghetti was presented off centre (heaped on one side of the plate) - so it made the size of the serve look even smaller.

the pipies had grit in them and afterwards we still had their taste in our mouths.

the staff cleaned the plates in front of us and on thetable (moving all the leftover onto one plate and then stacking them etc) before taking them away.

memories of our 3 previous dinners here and 1 breakfast when staying at the hotel were nothing similar to this experience.

we had atableof 12 and they charged us $3 pp for cakeage so it cost us around $30 just to bring a cake!my portion was tiny and overpriced, it wouldn't be enough food to feed a small child.

we had dinner on monday night, atableof 9, we really liked it. the food was very good and we didnt wait at all.
pappardelle pasta, gnocchi and few antipasto.
all thetablewas happy. thank you we will be back

a right shocker. i rarely take the time to write a review, but this place was so shocking i couldnt wait to log on to do so.
as diamant hotel guests, we were recommedned to this restaurant which we understand is part of/controlled by that hotel. we arrived about 8pm on a sat night and it was about 3/4 full. the service was lacking from the start. brisk, devoid of humour, and at times downright rude. but the real highlight, after waiting about 20 minutes for anyone to come near us to take evena drinks order, we were advised that they had run out of pizza and other bread produts. as these ingredients made up about 2/3 of the menu, this somehwta limited our choices. cant say i have ever neen to an italina pizzeria without pizza? is this a phenoma unique to canberra?
by this time, it was too late to consider getting a taxi and finding a place not assocated with the hotel. the serves we had were fairly small and and on the cold side. the wine we ordered was 5 years younger than stated on the wine list. ur enquiry re this was greeted with a shoulder shrug.
just as we were aout to leave, a largetableof about 12 people came in, and within 10 minutes, guess what they were served? pizzas!!!
i asked the manager/supervisor how this was possible, and and was told that thetablein question had "booked over 6 months ago and we knew they would want pizzas so we held some back".......wow
never go here. tawdry food and appalling service.

the worst service ever. i don't usually write reviews either but i have just returned from a dinner at bicicletta where i had asked about whether the special came with anything. i was told by the grumpy waiter " of course it does, it comes with mashed potato and broccoli". it sounded strange to have that with a seafood balsamic reduction but i went with it. when my food arrived it was a very tiny prawn and bug salad, one prawn and two bits of bug and orange pieces. it was not appealing. when i asked about the vegetables i was told (by another waiter) it did not come with any. i explained that the other waiter had said it would come with vegetables. there was much tense discussion between wait staff before i was told that i would get some mashed potato and broccoli. these arrived about ten minutes after my meal in separate bowls. this was obviously not intended to be served with th meal i ordered, and it did the dish no favours. the waiter that told me the wrong info was aware of that, but at no point did he come and say ' oh sorry about that' or anything. instead he completely ignored ourtablefor the rest of the evening and argued with other wait staff in forced whispers. the friends we were with basically said that this place is attached to the hotel and really just serves the guests, they are not interested in repeat local business. these guys know nothing about running a good restaurant. save your pennies and support local restaraunters that have a bit of passion and pride in what they do. this place has none of that.

the food was pretty tasty, except the arancini balls were a bit crunchy in the middle of the rice. the first waiter we had was sweet, but inexperienced. he just plonked our bottles of wine on thetablewithout so much as an offer of a pour. we had 4 people at ourtableand we ordered 3 pizzas to share. a different waiter put the pizzas in front of us, while our fourth guest was in the bathroom. this waiter looked to be more experienced, and i think he was in charge. we politely asked him if we could get some extra plates as we were sharing. in a rather cross voice he said, "you need to tell us if you want to share. we can't be expected to know you're sharing if there's only 3 of you and you only order 3 pizzas." we came back with, "but there's four of us! and we did tell the other waiter!" what we didn't say was, what's the big deal anyway? do we really need to play a blame game about whose fault it is that we, the customers, want to share pizza and we want extra plates?! so then the waiter turned around and blasted the inexperienced waiter - totally went off at him for not looking after our table. it was really unpleasant to see. so then the waiter in charge came back and slammed the extra plates on thetablewith a surly look on his face. must have been having a bad day or something, but why take it out on us? it wasn't like we were even sending back a dish!! anyway, we had a really nice night and the waiter's crankiness sort of made it entertaining. but i feel sorry for the inexperienced waiter. how's he ever going to get better if he's just going to get screamed at for trivial things like forgetting plates?

terrible! i never write re.... terrible!
i never write reviews but i was so disappointed i had to write this one. the service was non existent. no one served us. we had to wave down waiters anytime we needed anything as no one came to ourtableat all. $15 corkage and they didn't open or put wine on ice. waiter was very rude and food was extremely overpriced. very disappointed.

sub-par service soured fantastic food. so second week trying out bicicletta (http://bicicletta.com.au/) @ new acton. here is my summary.
1) atmosphere, fantastic really nice good place to sit outside socialise and drink.
2) food, also fantastic well prepared fresh and delicious.
3) service, some of the worst i've seen. really. no idea of what specials are, no idea of what is gluten free, no idea of portion size kids/entree/main, complete lack of interest in patron care. twice someone from thetablehad to approach main counter to enquire if our plates were going to be cleared and ask for drinks.

to conclude, a very enjoyable spot once management gets some decent wait staff