Pietrasanta - The Italian Restaurant

Not sure what to add to the title; professional service, great food and great location. Ask for a table outside. And reserve on time, they are popular!
Treat yourself and ask Giuseppe to select a wine for you from their impressive cave. He is way too modest, he will select a lower priced wine, but you have to up the budget and he'll come with something very special. Only then make your meal choice...

My wife treated me to a birthday dinner at Pietrasanta on a Saturday night. When we arrived it was quite clear that they were understaffed as only one waitress was tending to the outside area, where at least 7 tables were occupied with people who had almost all arrived at the same time. This was not a good start. We waited for quite a while for our iced water and bread had to be ordered separately (and paid for, something I find strange in a restaurant of this caliber). 
On the plus side, wonderful bottles of olive oil are available (ask for it though, the oil on the table is different and not as good) and the bread, once it arrived, was amazing. I am sure the pizza's must be great at this place if they can make bread like this.
Pietrasanta doesn't have a wine list but a cellar inside, where the waitress suggested I'd make a journey to. I found this a bit strange and would have appreciated to be able to choose a wine without leaving my seat. Call me old fashioned. I ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio which appeared promptly and which was very cold (good). 
We ordered the special starter (buffalo mozzarella with parma ham, tomatoes and rocket, a classic) and a melanzane. When they arrived the portions were very generous and the quality was wonderful. The buffalo mozzarella was melt-in-the-mouth soft and the tomatoes tasted like they had been flown in from Italy (they probably have been). My wife's melanzane was a portion worth of a main course and was perfectly made. 
Since we had had a really heavy lunch (not smart when dining at Pietrasanta) we decided to cancel the main course which was a truffle and sausage pasta for my wife and the beef tenderloin wrapped in Parma ham with Scamorza (cheese). The beef I will have at home tonight as the restaurant kindly packed it up for us. I am sure it will be amazing as it smelled and looked great.
For dessert we had a pannacotta which was presented with a candle and a song by two waitresses (reinforcements had arrived by this time). It was excellent as well.
Overall, I think this place is well worth a visit and I will certainly return (for pizza initially). I find it difficult to be critical of the service as it was clear our waitress tried hard but on the other hand when you pay around 80 bucks per person (with just a few glasses of wine) you expect a bit more from a place. If they get this bit right (and maybe it was simply bad luck that when we were there they were understaffed) my ranking of the place will go to a 9.

Squidink is just ink extracted from squid, when infused in food gives a wonderful ocean tang but unfortunately leaves a black glow as well.  Like most self-conscious ladies.  I will not order squidink anything when I am out with the unfamiliar.  This is because I did not manage to find a squidink anything I really like till Pietrasanta.  The squidink crab pasta is really gorgeous, so gorgeous that I kick myself again and again for not trying out the restaurant earlier. 

Pietrasanta's version of this common dish is choked full of fresh crabmeat and thick tomato sauce.  The strong flavour of sea, rich sauce and "wok hei" just give the dish much oomph.  This pasta is so addictive that I found myself going to Pietrasanta again and again.  Oh, by the way, the squidink is their signature which is not on their menu...hmm.

Another fabulous item which is not on menu is Pietrasanta's Buffalo Mozarella with Parma Ham ($34.90).  The buffalo mozarella was bigger than a fist and cherry tomatoes were the sweetest I ever tasted in Singapore.  This starter is served with really good olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar.

I had the  Merluzzo alla Griglia  ($28.90) on my first visit.  The grilled cod was good but not impressive.  This pricey fish is not as smooth as it should be but the charred parts were yummy. Nevertheless, I may still order this on my feel-healthy days. 

Perhaps the Filettoal Prosciutto Crudo con Scamorza ($30.90) is a guy's thing.  All three different guys I went with picked this tenderloin with parma ham and red wine sauce.  The men enjoyed their red meat while I found the meat a bit too heavy in taste.   

My colleague ordered the  Cannelloni di Cinghiale Gratinati, $18.90 on our first visit and it was really nothing but wild about this wild boar cannelloni.  It looks as common as it tasted.

I have been dropping by this lovely restaurant ever since I discovered the squidink pasta and the service is really not as bad as some of reviews here has stated.  The service staff were warm, polite and knowledgeable.  One even went all out to show me the packaging for the cherry tomatoes when I asked for its brand.  Perhaps, I am just lucky to get the more attentive staff and when I ever get bad service here, I will revise this review! 

I dont think Pietrasanta's owners read HGW, or if they do, they have not done anything about the major flaw of this restaurant - its service. There are poor service establishments in Singapore but for a restuarant of this ambience/billing, Pietrasanta has got to take the cake for rude, curt, and racially biased service.

The food is decent with their cold cuts being a plus, and their Florentine T-bone to be shared for 3 actually quite tasty (though Valentinos is better for this dish). They are weak on desserts and the clams we had that night were not the freshest.

But I come back again to the service. We had to tell the waitress how come we did not get the amuse bouche which some of the western clientele seemed to get without any asking. When she came back with them, she thumped them down on each of our areas with reckless abandon. We ordered wine, and it took a long time for it to show up. We had to repeatedly ask to take our main course orders (as we ordered appetizers first) but they kept running around and failing to show up with an order pad.

Its a real pity as the ambience and being in Wessex Estate should make for a more charming meal. Perhaps this is why after several years of being here, the clientele has moved decisively western with only about 25% of tables actually being Singaporean.

I wont be back anytime soon until I read some non-Western posts which score them higher for service.

 

I'd been meaning to try out Pietrasanta for a while, because it's in the West (I'm insular that way) and in a fairly charming part of the country (the Wessex estate, where the government hopes creative types will converge, if you make their rent cheap enough, etc). As Pietrasanta is actually one of the few Italian restaurants that's open on a Sunday night, we ended up there.

Anyway, the food was all right. My husband and I had the onion soup, which came topped with what looked like a piece of regular white sandwich bread turned crouton. I wish the restaurant had done a little more to hide this depressingly ordinary provenance. We also had a parma ham and rocket pizza, which had no surprises, and the ravioli, which came with a surprisingly flavourful bolognese sauce and was better.

Service was not stellar, considering that I had to ask the waitress what the little pots of red mince on our table were, to which she said they were a tomato dipping sauce and oh, did we not have our bread yet? I didn't see the inside of the restaurant, which was full, but the pine wood tables on the outside had a flimsy Ikea like quality.

Having said all this, though, our meal came up to about $50, which is not too shabby considering that the food really was decent and the Wessex atmosphere is quiet and tranquil (i.e., not Dempsey). So, as the Title suggests, you get what you pay for. Not fine dining, but not fine dining prices either.

Took my wife to Pietrasanta last saturday (our first visit) without making a reservation.  It was close to 7.15pm when we approach the "head waitress" for a table, was informed that no tables were available indoors and had to sit outdoors, and we had to leave by 8.15 for the reserved customer.  Sure, cos we wanted to have a quick, no-fuss dinner anyway.

Lead us to an inner courtyard and a sat us at a table for 4 with no fan above us, everyone else in the same row has a fan above, just my luck.  Was informed of the specials when we were running through the menu.  Being our 1st visit, we thought we should give the specials a try.  We had the Clams in white wine (special), Squid ink pasta with crab sauce (special), Breaded pork loin stuffed with cheese (menu item), and a glass of white wine for myself.

Service was prompt, warm bread was serve together with a cold tomato dip.  Soon the clams arrive in a nice pot, quite a generous portion for 2, before i could ask, waitress offered more bread to go with the dish, which i thought was a good initiative on her part.  The dish was filled with fresh seafood fragrance with hints of garlic, chillies and wine.  Overall, i felt the dish was a tad salty, but that could be due to the freshness of the clams.  The bread helped to even out the flavours and we soaked it up nice and good!

Next came the mains, Wifey had the pork while i had the pasta.  She felt that the pork was little dry and tough, but the stuffed cheese well accompanied the pork.  I enjoyed the pasta, well balanced flavours of crab meat and tomato sauce. 

Throughout the dinner, our water glassees were never left dry (i'm impressed to be honest), a bottle of water was always ready on the our table, but i only touched it once, and that was just to check the temperature of the water! hee..

Mains were done, and a quick time-check, 8.15pm on my watch.  We did not felt rushed through dinner.  However, when the waitress cleared our plates and asked if we would like desserts, when i mentioned that i'd love to , but don't they need to have the table back? The reply came back,"yes, we're expecting the guest to arrive at 8.30pm" Weird, had i went ahead to order dessert and coffee, would i be chased away, half-munching on my tiramisu?  We'll never know. :)

Bill came to abt $95.    As mentioned by another reviewer, they did not mention the prices for the specials.  But that's restaurant tactics, all we have to do, is ask. Kudos to their upselling skills. 

p.s. the indoor seating remained abt 70% filled throughout my dinner, which i could see from where i sat.  Hmmm...

The restaurant is located at a wonderful spot in Portsdown. I recommend going there in the early evenings, grab a table in the balcony to enjoy the ambience. I remembered the clams to be much better, but the pizzas now are to die for. Really really addictive, they're crispy and chewy at the same time. My favourite is the four cheese. Can't wait to go back for more.

I will never recommend this restaurant despite their decent offerings. I consider discriminatory service an absolute dealbreaker. Pietrasantra's service is not only shockingly bad, i.e., absolutely incompetent wait staff, the owner seems content at only providing good service to his non-asian customers.

I arrived 5 minutes late for my reservation only to find that my table of 6 was given away to a group of Caucasian diners. No one bothered to call me to check if we were on the way. Worst still, neither the owner nor his wait staff could care less and simply shrugged that there were no tables. It was only after 15 minutes of explaining that the head waitress was willing to let us wait outside for a table to open up. During our wait (20 minutes), more walk-in customers (notably Caucasian customers) were seated in parties of four to six.

The food was decent enough. Sadly, it was impossible to get any waitstaff to pay attention to my table. Water refills were few and far between. The incompetent waitstaff were incapable of taking accurate orders, not that anything of a higher standard was expected given my experience with the reservation.

It was such an unpleasant experience. What was shocking was that there was clearly a group of disgruntled diners and the owner simply could not care less. I will never go back and I would never recommend this place to any Singaporean unless they are willing to accept being treated like a second class citizen.

I was there for a business lunch and the quality of the food was really good. What remained impressed was the tenderloin. Perfectly cooked and seasoned so that my mouth waters right now as I'm writing this!
Also great desserts especially the chocolate cake from Pistocchi, a small italian producers specialized in chocolate cakes without flower.
Also great wines some of which out of the mainstream boring brands found at every other restaurant.

I can't believe it took me so long to try out this place. The previous semi-satisfactory/negative reviews did put me off to a very large extent. It was only when a friend (whose recommendations I trusted) enthused about it that I finally decided to give it a shot. When it opened again last week after taking a couple of weeks off for their "summer holiday", I made a reservation for Saturday night.

Reservations are definitely recommended. You wouldn't want to navigate deep into Wessex Estate (Portsdown) only to be told that there are no tables available. I would prefer sitting outdoors (sheltered) only because it is quieter. Indoors, the noise simply echos off the walls. There are a couple of cosy couches outdoors for drinks and light bites too.

The starters we tried - (i) Deep-fried battered fresh anchovies, (ii) portobello mushroom stuffed with vegetables and sausage and (iii) mixed salad. Fresh anchovies were a surprise! Contrary to what most would think, fresh anchovies are not salty at all (only the preserved ones are). It looks like a sardine - The flesh is meaty, but as it is fresh, it doesn't have that slightly rubbery texture. The stuffed portobello mushroom was comforting, but nothing outstanding. I wouldn't recommend the mixed salad unless you are really desperate for a fix of fresh greens.

The mains were stella. Top dish of the night was the braised baby lamb shank in flavoursome tomato/mixed veggies sauce and creamy mash potatoes. The Altantic cod we tried was a tad over-cooked but good nonetheless, served with a similar (but less heavy - sans meat) tomato/mixed veggies sauce. The home-made pasta with meat sauce came with tender soft pieces of pork ribs, the taste a little more delicate than the lamb shank and atlantic cod. The waitress was unable to tell us what type of pasta was being served, but after googling, I found out that it was "CASARECCI" (two-inch-long thin twists) which surprise (!), means "home-style" in Italian.

I am a fan of crispy-thin pizzas and salivating toppings covered in cheese - Pietrasanta's pizzas were average. Then again, pizzas are really subjective.

After all of the above, and multiple rounds of the crusty yet feathery soft in the inside bread, we had no space to try their desserts. A pity though, the desserts in the display looked really appetising in the "grandmother-made" way.

The bill came up to about S$200, which was very reasonable, considering we had wine. The starters are priced around $S18 while the mains are averaged at S$28. At a "fine-dining" establishment, you would pay about S$45 for the mains, and probably not be as satisfied.