Rustica Canteen

Very disappointing taste like rubber with grated cheese

I had an excellent pesto & cheese toastie. It was on fresh soft paratha type bead & folded. Highly recommended

Had a lovely afternoon meal here Awesome service and a great view on the water

Very friendly staff. Current special "Scotch Fillet - with Mushroom Sauce, served with Chips and Salad" was delicious - highly recommended.

Extremely poor service this morning 7.30, 30th December Staff too busy chatting to serve customers

Not bad food. We had seafood platter and beef burger. Decent portion. Nice iced chocolate drink, not overly sweet. Only downside is the size of the restaurant. Can't catered for big group size. 4 I think just nice.

Came to Hillary’s for a wonder through the markets and lunch. Popped into to Rustica’s as we hadn’t eaten here before and the menu, while it had some common Italian offerings, looked ok. Interior is nice and airy with bar and Italian beach vibe. Staff were friendly. Menu is large with all-day breakfast, lunch-dinner offerings and kids menu. Prices are high for what they offer and the quality! We ordered Fish and chips, salmon with salad and side of truffled mash, smoked salmon, beetroot pesto, feta bruschetta and spaghetti al ragu. The meals took a long time to come and we watched as two of our meals sat under the warming lamps for 10+ mins, while they prepared the other two meals. I’ll start with the good. The youngest enjoyed her ragu and chips, it’s wasn’t sweet and good flavor. Chips were nice and crunchy. Fish and chip, can’t go wrong with this and Dad enjoyed it. Now the bad! While my wife ordered the bruschetta she instead was served the breakfast smoked salmon and beetroot pesto, which comes with poached eggs! We hadn’t realized this and assumed it was part of the meal and didn’t think to much of It, until I started my review and checked the menu. i realized then what they had done! The meal was bad, there was hardly any pesto, the bread was unevenly cut so one slice was thick, not toasted evenly so one end was burnt black, the other slice was thin and over toasted! We asked for more pesto and they gave us slices of beetroot from a can! We did complain about the burnt bread and they offered to prepare again, but wife was hungry and we weren’t prepared to wait longer. The salmon dish I ordered came to me after sitting at the warmer for a while so salad had started to brown and wilt, It was warm and had lost it’s freshness. The mash was nice, but only had a very slight, barely there truffle flavor. I’ve had truffle mash many time’s and this was not in line with them. The salmon piece was meager for the price, I’ve had larger piece from Japanese takeaway! I have to say we were disappointed with two of the meals, particularly not getting what we asked for and the time taken. if we had realized at the time and not been so hungry, we would of complained more, regretting this now. It could be we may have come on a bad, the chef did look frustrated with his team, But still not a great experience!

Terrible food don't even bother unless they change the chefs. Advertised "egg fresh pasta" on the spaghetti carbonara. It definitely was not fresh made pasta and was packet, also lacks any flavour. As well as being over priced and under portion for 24 dollars. Salmon skin way too much salt. Trying to get it crispy. Inside was cooked well though I'll give it that but the skin so salty it was inedible. Coffee was good though hence the 2 star. But this is completely reflective on the food itself.

Avoid this place. Went for lunch and ordered the steak sandwich. I cannot believe how someone can do so wrong with a sandwich, the meat is chewy , salty and smells a bit. For the bread, it is soggy and soaked with cheese and oil. The worst part is there are 20-30 pepper corns hidden in the cheese. I really should have taken a picture of the pepper corns I picked out. The meal is not cheap there either. It is definitely the worst meal I have had for a really long time.

Very disappointing, and very expensive for what you get. Especially considering they do not offer table service. The pizza was good, if overpriced, but the seafood platter was the worst value ever. Two thirds was stale chips and the other third was the cheapest tasting tiny piece of fish ever (tasted like frozen imported hake from a fish farm somewhere in South East Asia -- literally tasted like dirty tank water -- with three tiny bits of calamari and three prawns which didn't taste much better. Tried to offer some polite and constructive feedback but waitress was very rude. Said no one else had ever complained and implied I was fussy. Well, they'll just get a bad reputation with an attitude like that. Eat the pizza by all means, but avoid the $30 'seafood platter' at all costs! (I'm hoping I don't get sick... Time will tell)