Orecchiette Restaurant - Bunbury

We were driving to Margaret River from Perth and decided to stay at Bunbury area.Really surprised , found the Italian restaurant with great food and great service as well around the area. Start from my favourite Arancini balls, Mozzarella balls, pork belly bites & Chilli Pizza Bread. My husband ordered lamb shank (was really huge) presented with a smile. My friend ordered Gamberi ( I never heard Gamberi - but Spaghetti with Prawns in Garlic butter). Overall - price was reasonable, however the flavour, service & portion was terrific. When we are up here again we'll definitely be back for dinner. Really surprised! But very happy!Happy Tummy, happy life! LOL

For a Friday night the restaurant seemed quiet. Perhaps this was the first indication that it had gone downhill. My friend and I were very disappointed in the food and dining experience and wished we'd gone elsewhere.The décor is very classy as it has always been. It's been updated with modern, colourful floor lamps but the globes are way too bright especially when they shine straight into your eyes.The music is audible close to the entrance at the rear side door but we couldn't hear any music from our seats near the front windows. There was no ambience as far as mood lighting and music was concerned.We ordered garlic bread as an entrée. This came out as a pizza base. Fair enough it's an Italian restaurant. It was accompanied with a small dipping bowl of olive oil that had a drop of balsamic vinegar settled in the bottom of it. We found the garlic bread or should I say garlic pizza a little too salty but otherwise edible.There was nothing on the menu that we liked and were told they had reduced their prices to around $25 per main on this menu to attract more business. My friend asked if there was a beef n reef style meal and the wait person pointed to a black-board menu with this available and priced at $55 per main. We decided to have one of these each.I ordered my steak as medium rare. Instead the thick cut sirloin steak came out rare. It hadn't been rested after cooking and the blood was seeping out into the sauce. I cut into the steak and could visibly see blood oozing out. I tried to eat around the edges and see if that was any better but all of it was rare. I had to ask for it to be cooked a little more. When it came out it was seared a bit more on one side but not on the other side. It was now bordering on rare to medium rare. It made me feel sick, the taste of animal blood and raw meat. I had to leave some. It was served with some fatty tasting scalloped fried potatoes grouped together like a big hash brown and some asparagus and a lot of peppery white sauce. I'm not sure why they bothered to put some cold undressed salad rocket with it, it didn't seem to go with the hot meal that had cooked vegetables.I waited a little while until I felt better before we ordered dessert. I love chocolate but on this occasion I thought I wouldn't be able to stomach the "Death by Chocolate" dessert my friend ordered. Instead I ordered the banofffe that is usually a banana/toffee type of light dessert.To our shock and horror, out came two pizza bases of these desserts. Yuk. As if we hadn't had enough of the pizza base garlic bread, now our desserts were on pizza bases.I ate some of the meagre filling on my pizza dessert but basically my friend tried to eat the rest even though we found them distasteful. We were very disappointed. The wait person asked us how we enjoyed our dessert and we both gave our honest opinions that we were disappointed. I asked why they were on pizza bases and she said that she only showed us the pizza desserts. The way the menu read, there was no indication that these would come out on pizza bases. They were served on bread boards with a scoop of Ice Cream in the middle of the pizza that turned into a sloppy mess that made us both feel unwell.We paid the bill and left and won't be back. The drinks were nice, especially the Clean Skins Margaret River wine. That was the only pleasant experience apart from enjoying each other's company. The wait person should be trained to show and describe all the menus, not assume because she likes the pizza desserts that other people will. We didn't know they would come out on pizza bases and would never have ordered them if we'd known this.

The Bunbury restaurant scene has developed considerably in recent years; nowadays there is a good offering of many different styles of cuisine. Orecchiette is one of the better Italian style restaurants presenting a relatively small menu, however the choices are wide ranging and the dishes well cooked and flavoursome. The dining room is well laid out and the ambience is friendly and casual, however the wait staff need to be more focused to keep up with the rest of the offering. Ensuring that guests receive what they ordered is paramount and confusing tables should be avoided. The wine list offers a good choice of wines, most of which are local and of good quality. Our group enjoyed the experience.

We had really nice meals and the service was pretty good. Hubby had lamb shank on mashed potato(this was a little bit dry). The lamb itself was tender and very tasty. I ordered brasciole and this was a little over cooked but tasty. I didn't think much of the green sauce (not too sure what it was), I would have preferred a different sauce but overall very nice. We shared a tiramisu and that was lovely the only let down was the spray cream on top which kinda gave it a cafe style, we half expected a maraschino cherry on top. Overall the atmosphere was nice but one male was extremely loud, I know a part from everyone dragging him out it isn't your fault. Would we come back yes I think so and would like to bring our teenage daughter's.

I was down on business and must say love this place I wasn't disappointed had a great atmosphere and food was to die for.. This traveller will be back. Keep up the amazing work.