osteria ilaria

great food and wine. lovely atmosphere, polite staff. we ordered the duck and the wagyu steak. both were cooked perfectly! love the venue, really nice atmosphere; we will be back!

i have been here a couple of times and always really enjoyed my night. on saturday night the service was really disappointing.  the staff were slow to take our orders, we had to get out of our seats to ask the waiter for a second glass of wine.  the food was good but not great as i remembered.  i was dining with a group who had all previously worked in hospitality. we decided not to tip which was very out of character for us.

fantastic restaurant, personally one of the best i have been in melbounre. great combination of food, wine, atmosphere makes unique.i highly recommend it

really disappointing. i was so excited to try this place since i've always had an amazing meal at tip00, but unfortunately it just didn't deliver.

the worst dish, surprisingly, was the prawn pasta dish, which everyone on ig has been raving about. we all found the pasta way undercooked, i mean, i know my boyfriend in particular likes his pasta a little softer than al dente, but even i found it almost crunchy. the sauce also lacked punch and just wasn't enjoyable.

i quite like the croquettes (as you know though, i have a weakness for croquettes), but they seemed tiny for $4 a pop. the octopus was nice.

hands down the crowd favourite was the truffle ravioli. goodness that filling was absolutely amazing, i think we all would've had a nicer meal if we just had one whole plate of that each. again, i found the pasta a little under though.

i really loved my lunches at osteria illaria.  the paccheri pasta with crystal prawns is the go to dish. although the house baked bread with whipped butter is a pretty close second.

we dined as a group of 3, so booked ahead for a table. it was a monday night, so not too busy.  we thought about getting the chef's selection, but decided to order dishes as we went.  best dish of the night was the octopus! so delicious! the other dishes we had were great, but not amazing.  service was very attention and super helpful with our wine selection (a very extensive wine list!). ambience was lovely; not too loud.
definitely recommend going here!

i would give osteria ilaria 4.5
opened by the same team behind “tipo 00”, so i don’t really worry about the quality of food. they were literally next to each other. quite busy during dinner time, if possible, make reservation in advance.
we sat at the kitchen table seats and had a clear view of the whole kitchen, that was a part of fun too.

not like tipo which was specialised in pasta dishes, osteria ilaria offered casual italian cuisine from light starters to main dishes. we had a hard time to choose what to eat so we decide to go with “chef’s selection($75 pp)”which included 8 dishes +two side dishes and that was plenty food for us. according to the waiter, you might get different dishes each time. here are what we had for chef’s selection:
#prochini mushroom corquette#-it was so crunchy yet with extremely soft mushroom filling, purely mushroom flavour with great texture. highly recommend!
#kingfish curdo#-refreshing and fresh dish. it was good but not great.
#cheese and witloof salad#-braised and pickled witloof was the highlight, cheese mixture was creamy and salty.
#grilled calamari#-served with fava bean mash and paparika. just loved the charcoal flavour of the slightly burnt calamari as well as the tender texture~it was a great dish to have.
#paccheri pasta#-served with crystal bay prawns, you just can’t say no to pasta from ilaria! the pastas was perfectly cooke with slightly chewiness, simple sauce to accompany the beautiful fresh prawn meat and pasta.
#roasted corn-fed duck#-served with two side dishes #chikpea chips# and #roasted brussels sprouts#. that was a big dish included one duck breast and one leg meat. meat was cooked beautifully with lots of nice flavours. recommend to you all! btw, chickpeas chips was nice too.
last but not least, we had #beetroot cured blood plum# and #hazelnut semifreddo# as the dessert to finish the meal. personally i preferred the blood plum as it had the right sweetness as well as the refreshingness.
overall we had a great dinning experience at osteria ilaria, good environment, good service and great food. really, nothing to complain.

went for a late dinner, after having been to tipo00. we were hungry and ordered up a storm, we had zucchini flowers, octopus, scallops, kingfish and rabbit sausage to start. everything was nice, the rabbit sausage was great. i had the duck and hubby had the special pork chop. dessert was probably the most disappointing of the meal. great little restaurant but i think tipo00 and the chefs menu still has it over it’s sister restaurant.

beautiful delicious modern italian food. went here with colleagues as a group of three. we shared all the dishes and everything was absolutely delicious. the highlights were the fennel bread, chocolate and mushroom ravioli and the pork chop special, which was so clean and full of flavour - probably one of the best pork dishes i’ve ever tried. will definitely come back to try other gems of the menu.

this place is a gem! the service is wonderful and the atmosphere is amazing. i would come back here to dine in a heart beat. ❤️ thank you so much lucy and sarah for accommodating to my partner and i on her special day!

i honestly haven’t been exposed to authentic italian food and flavours that often, but osteria illaria, despite the “nonna’s house” vibe of the restaurant, delivers an impeccable high level of expertise and cuisine. the menu is printed on one a4 pager and makes you want to order one of each dish if the stomach and back pocket permitted. the stand out dish for me (hard to pick one though) was the octopus. will definitely blog about this dining experience soon because it was perfection. i would’ve given it a 5 but the waiter told me my glass of sangiovese wasn’t off when it definitely was. i wouldn’t take a sip of red wine and send it back if there wasn’t something wrong with it. otherwise, stay posted for the blog review folks!

sometimes there are restaurants that really get you thinking how effortlessly and attentively they perform.
osteria ilaria is, for now, top of the list in that respect.
friendly and professional wait staff, clever and functional architecture and fit out, perfectly portioned dishes and fine talent in the open kitchen make the visit memorable.
the wine list, (some 12 pages of!) is excellent.
we shared four dishes and were suitably impressed. the lamb tartare, octopus, calamari and zucchini flowers were all spot on.
great value.

the food here is nice but nothing to write home about. the starter special of scampi at $38 is a complete rip off. the food was tasty but lacking the extra touch for the price you pay at $100 per head with wine.
restaurant deserves 3.5 but due to great service, we put down 4 out of 5.

this restaurant has been one i had been wanting to try for some time. overall. the dining experience was a good one. the service was polished and the atmosphere was lovely and moody with good attention to detail. i found ordering somewhat challenging and there weren't any dishes that jumped out as ones i really wanted to try - larger dishes in particular. tiny, expensive wagyu....ugh. i'm tired of seeing this on menus as the only red meat option. with this said, the dishes eventually selected were all very flavoursome, beautifully presented, and appropriately sized.

😱lizzie’s first impression: i had this place bookmarked for ages as i loved tipo 00 so it was only fitting to check it out when i was celebrating a birthday. the place has great ambience and i love how you can see the chefs cook the pasta in the fairly open kitchen.

🍩lizzie enjoyed: everything was delicious. i would highly recommend the croquettes and the duck main. croquettes were creamy and the right amount of crispy. the duck had so much flavour and the portion size was very generous. the octopus was also a yummy entree and had a very good smokey flavour to it.

🍅lizzie did not enjoy: the specials pasta with lobster was nice but it didn’t have enough sauce/flavour and i wasn’t sure about the chopped up peas.

🥇lizzie rates overall: this place is great for a celebration or a romantic date. the food is meant for sharing and there are plenty of options. can’t wait to come back to try the other dishes!