Store
Villa Romana
252 Lygon St
Carlton VIC 3053
Tel: (03) 9650 7990
Fax: (03) 9650 2774
Web: http://www.villaromana.com.au/melbourne/

Lygon Street is well known of its Italian delicacies, however I had never been there for lunch. It’s pretty quiet during the week days for lunch. I have been to Villa Romana before, and on my recommendation I took a few of my mates there.

The service
I send my apologies for our poor behavior. I say poor because it took us ages to make up our minds for the food. In fact when the waitress came for the orders for the second time, we never bothered to look at menu. That’s pretty poor, and I am personally sorry. I get excited when I catch up with friends after a long time.

I can’t complain about the service. We had a three course lunch meal, and coffees and the service was prompt. Sure enough after our disastrous start, we didn’t bother the waitress too much about each of the dishes.

The ambience and venue
Villa Romana have three different seating arrangements. On a wintry evening, you can choose to sit indoors near the kitchen. This area is nicely decorated with pictures of famous people dining at the restaurant. You can see the photos here. Then, there is the portico area, which is where we chose to sit. This actually makes up the majority of the seating arrangements. Watch out for slight holes in the portico roof, I found this out when the rain water dropped onto my back. But that’s ok. Finally, the true outdoor setting literally on the foot path. They do have heaters located between each table, but I don’t generally like eating when strangers strut by.

The food
Personally, I enjoy the wood fired pizzas, and the gnocchi served in mushroom creamy sauce with a hint of sundried tomatos.

Suggestions
* Fix those small  holes in the portico to avoid customers getting “drenched”.
* I really like the google map integration, but you should consider having an online booking system.
* The menu on your website needs some serious work. Where is it anyway? It’s way too brief. It doesn’t take much effort to scan the menu and feature it on the site.

Summary – 7/10 (I liked it, but it’s not the best out there by a long shot)
I hope you guys take my pointers and revamp your website, and fix those holes in the portico.