Out of five stars, this is a one-star restaurant
I encountered this restaurant recently when a few friends and I were following a local band to a show at a club in the rural suburbs outside Melbourne. I was hungry and figured I would get a quick bite of Italian food to coat my stomach before loading up on alcohol at the club. Simple enough concept, or so I thought.

La Collina Pizzeria is a small, family-owned pizza place in the middle of nowhere. It is small, could be cleaner, and primarily sells a variety of pizzas and pasta for take-out and sometimes casual dining-in. I am vegetarian, and was craving some good cheese ravioli--when I go into a restaurant, I normally have a set food in mind and do not like to pay money for a "compromised" food--but they did not offer vegetarian versions of neither ravioli NOR tortellini--almost all of their pasta contains beef, which was not very pleasing. I did not find their selection of food to be very healthy OR vegetarian friendly. The only foods that are vegetarian there are the pizzas, spaghetti, and gnocchi, but nothing of real substance. The girl who took our order at the counter kept asking "what would you like?" repeatedly, which I found annoying, because right after she'd tell me that they didn't have something, she'd bug me about what I wanted to order before giving me a chance to look at the menu and rethink what I wanted to order.

The worst part about the place is the long wait for the food. The annoying counter girl told me that it would take 20 minutes for my take-out food to be ready, which I found to be rather a long wait, much longer than most sit-down restaurants that I've visited--but regardless, I sat and waited for a good 45 minutes--LITERALLY MORE THAN TWICE THE PROMISED TIME--before the food came. During this time, the employees neglected to ensure us that our food was on the way, or to notify us that there was a delay in making our order. Geez, for a place whose worker was so impatient in taking our order, they sure took their time preparing their food for us. Because of the wait, we nearly missed the local band's show. In fact, the employees did not go out of their way to make our time there enjoyable--instead, we felt rather neglected and even wondered at one point if they'd forgotten our order.

The food quality is mediocre at best. The gnocchi (that I finally compromised on) consisted of amateurishly-cut potato dumplings in a greasy cream sauce. The prices here are not expensive, but they do not reflect the "quality" of the food or service--we paid about the same for a gnocchi take-out entree as we normally did for a much higher quality pasta entree at a nicer restaurant in Melbourne. From what I saw over the counter, the pizza toppings and ingredients used are not the freshest--the black olives are brown, the salami looks aged, and the lettuce looked limp--and this was all observed only a few minutes before our food arrived, heh talk about a great way to turn on your appetite.

For a restaurant whose supposed primary purpose is take-out, much improvement is needed on both their food quality and especially on the time it takes to prepare the food. My friend and I left the place in a huff without finishing our long-awaited entree, and the poor service and fear of missing the band play left a bad taste in our mouths for a good portion of the evening. I do not recommend coming here next time you are in Belgrave.    [07 Oct 2003 02:19:50]

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     ­Anonymous   

Best pizza in area
The pizzas here are terrific: thin crust and lovely toppings. Bookings needed on weekends.    [06 May 2005 21:50:07]

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Recommended Dishes: Pizza

     ­Anonymous   

Terrable Pizza, terrable place
Never go the this resturant, food is terrable.

I waited for about 40 minutes for a pizza, and it was terrable.

I beleive that this place needs to be inspected & possibly shut down.

My family and I walked out and left the meal.

I will never go here again, and recommend that other people not eat in at this alful place.

Belgrave is awful and so is La Collina Pizzeria in Australia/VIC/Belgrave    [03 Oct 2005 08:25:07]

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Recommended Dishes: none

     ­Anonymous   

Consistent take away
They have decent takeaway and they deliver which is a big plus. We've used them at least monthly for 3 and a half years and have always been satisfied. The one time we ate in we had a good meal that arrived in about 15 minutes. They catered for our daughter with a small pasta and had a high chair for us to use also.

I have had quite a few good, tasty and affordable meals there and would recommend to anyone in a 15 minute radius.    [24 Mar 2006 03:45:04]

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Recommended Dishes: Chicken Avocado, Lasagne, BBQ Meat Lovers Pizza (ask for BBQ sauce), hawiian pizza

     ­Grant McDonald, indevelopment.org   nospamplease at indevelopment dot org