It’s not often that I have a meal as bad and as expensive as the one I had at CicciaBella.
Zia Romildo’s Garage Pizza, shown here in the Pino’s Pepperoni variant ($14) really does taste and feel like it came out of some guy’s dim and cobwebbed garage. Saucing was minimal, cheesing was minimal with terrible coverage, and pepperoni was delivered as it were a wartime allotment. All that was generous was the boring, dry, and bready pizza base, so bereft of any joy that a lunchable would’ve offered a more preferable topping to base ratio.
Sonoma Bread ($5), expertly removed from its packaging and placed in a basket. No faults.
It’s come to my attention in the past three days that you can get burrata from the local supermarket for $5. That makes paying $14 for this burrata a total outsider move. Very standard, though that’s probably a compliment at CicciaBella.
This rigatoni in ossobuco ragu ($28) was actually pretty good. The flavours were standard ragu, and the pasta, though quite al dente, was quite palatable. The portion size, in keeping in CicciaBella’s apparent theme and philosophy, was unfortunately small for the price paid. In my opinion this is one of the few things worth getting here.
The market fish with lemon and sorrel ($35) was a sorry excuse for cooking. It was a cachectic baby snapper, cooked with as much skill as you would expect from a small child. Less than the bare minimum attempt had been made to even descale this fish, with each mouthful another journey into what can go wrong. I’ve never asked for money back on a bad dish or meal but I’m starting to wish that I had.
VERDICT
I wouldn’t spend time or money here again.
CicciaBella Trattoria & Bar Parramatta
T3/01 153 Macquarie St, Parramatta NSW 2150
(02) 8090 6979