My new favourite place to eat in the mountains! I have to admit, I was pretty excited to see…read moreunwavering 5/5 yelp reviews, and all I can say is that they are well deserved! This little restaurant is located on Lurline St in Katoomba. It's recently started doing lunch on Fridays and Saturdays (from 11:30am), which is when we went. We started off by having the freshly baked Pinenut and Rosemary bread. For our entree we split a serve of the Scallops ($18) which were amazing. We could not fathom how they managed to get scallops so right, when they are located so far from the sea... but trust me, they did. For mains I had the Pork Belly ($32). This was based on a previous Yelp review and I'm so happy I ordered it. It was perfection. I'm drooling at my keyboarding thinking about it. My wife had the Crispy Skin Salmon ($29.50) which was cooked to perfection. Salmon cooked this way is not an easy thing to get just right... but they did it. We also ordered a side of Chat potatoes ($9) because who can resist roast potatoes cooked in duck fat? They were great, lots of flavour. I highly recommend that everyone looking for a place to eat in Katoomba (or the mountains) makes the effort to come have a meal here. It was a highlight of our weekend away, and we will be back (many times!).

This is the no. 1 restaurant in the Blue Mountains on another famous travel site, and the rainy…read moreweeknight we visited, the place had a full house. I was wondering why as the food did not seem as sophisticated on photos as, say, Garage or Solitary. I got my answer alright. Basically, and despite the website's claims to Italian-Japanese fusion, the cooking style is pre-nouvelle-cuisine French ("cuisine bourgeoise" as Houellebecq might call it) as "preserved" by the Japanese; that is, a style that is easy to find in Japan but almost inexistent in France these days, except in the homes of old (bourgeois) families where the tradition is passed down. Like mine - grandma is a Colonel's wife, and spent her life perfecting her skills in the matter, as she needed to feed 8 children. Of course, this old style of cooking with elaborate sauces at the centre of rich dishes is very tasty and tends to be well received by just about anybody in the dining public, and here it is done well with excellent Australian ingredients, so no wonder this place rates so highly. It also happens to be easy to screw up, which is why few places outside Japan (which has insane quality standards and perfectionist chefs) still do it, so it's a testimony to how well Pins' kitchen is run that they can do this kind of thing so reliably. My fillet was an inch thick and very wide, nicely scorched on both sides yet medium rare in the middle. The Diane sauce, made with brandy, tomatoes, peppercorns, mushrooms and cream (I'm guessing; could have been butter) was rich and wonderful, a true expression of a style of cooking I rarely get to enjoy these days, that you might have found in the auberges in the countryside before cheaper and simpler "put some leaves on top of a bit of meat" took over the Western world, ironically (as the Japanese are now custodians of cuisine classique) thanks to the influence Japanese kaiseki-ryori had on Bocuse, Troisgros etc. - in fact I don't think I've ever had a Diane sauce this good. The duck fat roasted potatoes tasted like exactly like their name suggested: dense, well cooked, ummami like there was no tomorrow. The garlic prawn spaghetti were not, as might have been expected in Australia, spaghetti and prawns tossed in olive oil in which garlic was fried. Instead, again came a cream and tomato based sauce, this time with complexity added by lightly fried leeks (genius! I'm borrowing this one for home) and of course the large prawns and al dente (!) linguine (not spaghetti, but I think that's an improvement). Dessert (pictured) was the Bombe Alaska. Ever since watching the final scene with Mr Wint and Mr Kidd in Diamonds are Forever I've wanted to order this, but nobody ever offers it on their menu. Well again, we find the cuisine bourgeoise impeccably executed; the macaroon had the perfect texture, easily breaking apart under the fork but retaining its chewiness under the tooth; the textures moving from hard (macaroon) to soft (meringue) as you move up, yet belonging to the same family of flavours (roasted sugars). It was rich, and we were already full, but we still managed to eat most of it. The wine list was fairly simple, in that everything was $7.50 a glass. I only had a glass of desert wine, but it was predictably both excellent and a good match for the dessert and the style. Service was, of course, excellent. The interior is a work of art, a balance between delicate artworks worthy of fine dining establishments and the level of comfort one expects of one's local. I am very inexperienced in my understanding of Japanese art, but I think I saw some artworks in the style of the Rinpa school; perfectly appropriate, philosophically, to the food presented, in tying it with a period characterized by a shift from the Spartan minimalism of the early Edo period towards hedonistic decadence and a tendency by the daimyo ruling class to start imitating the Japanese bourgeois merchant class... Quick mention of the garden which is well kept and with many Japanese elements (such as the gravel path and round bushes). I have to confess to having had food poisoning on the day BEFORE coming to Pins; I thus arrived utterly not hungry, still going for it mostly not to waste our long drive and hotel night and give my wife a nice date night. Yet, the food was so well made and comforting that I couldn't help but finish all the dishes and still order dessert. This place absolutely deserves its reputation and we will probably return for our next trip. It's the kind of restaurant where one wants to try everything on the menu, because it is probably the product of long years of work iterating towards perfection and so everything will be a hit. Do watch out for the 2% credit card charge - bring cash.

I'm glad to find a pizza place which is brave enough to have anchovies on their house pizza. That,…read morepaired with the olives makes for a salty pizza, but I do love salty. Great dough, excellent dough cooked perfectly. To be honest, one of the best non-wood fire pizzas I've ever had. The chicken in tomato sauce pasta was less of a tomato based sauce and was more like a butter chicken from your Indian takeaway. The fact that my wife used her worst pasta experience as a way to justify that it's not a terrible dish was a real red flag. She had to force it down. The desert was a great finish. Sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream allowed for a perfected mixture of hot and cold. Allowing each spoon full of ice cream to melt over the steaming pudding creating a river of creamy gold.

This place spins out a lot of pizza but it has decent pastas as well. The olive tapenade entree…read morewas actually a small pizza with olive tapenade and generous amount of cheese. We ordered the lasagna and fettuccine with chicken & prosciutto, both entree sizes and perfect portions so to leave room for desserts! Wasn't crazy about the 'lounge' seating with the couches and coffee table. A little awkward to eat pasta but other than that...the service was superb.

Awesome food to eat. The pizza menu and pasta menu were generous and quite tasty. The service was…read morequick and professional. The only things I could fault: - As a university student, I struggled to find a lot of items that were affordable. The place is considered to be very expensive. However, it is expected - the presentation of the restaurant basically gives this away. - I remember one dish that's as absolutely not worth the price. This was the lamb skewers- Very expensive for such a small serving. Make sure that if you plan to dine in here that you wear fancy clothes

I'm surprised I'm the first person to review this place. From the road you think this place is just…read morea small local Italian joint but it actually extends all the way down the back and is packed on weekends. They have 2 seating times on weekends so make sure you book or you're not going to find a free table. I had high hopes for this place and it delivered. Great atmosphere and great Italian service. I loved how the menu was so different from other Italian places I've been to. That being said they have a very extensive menu which made it difficult to choose from. My only complaint would be that our pizza entree was really salty and my duck ragu was a tad salty but the rest of my table loved their choices. The waiter recommended the linguine con salsiccie e porcini and it was a fabulous recommendation. For anyone as obsessed with truffle as I am, this is definitely the dish for you! There will definitely have to be a trip back for round 2!

When I moved to Penrith I was in search of authentic Italian food. Where I used to live I had a…read moregreat Italian restaurant near me so I needed to find a new one! I love everything about this place - the food is excellent quality and is always steaming hot when it's served. I've had pretty poor luck with finding fresh tortellini from other places (always frozen or store bought) but the pasta here is amazing. Everything is fresh! Decently priced too. The service is excellent and you will almost always find the owner cooking in the kitchen. He is always very welcoming! When I found out they did take away it basically made my life! I have recommended this place to all my friends and family and they love it too!

This pizza shop is a decent spot for a pizza and is incredibly popular with locals and tourists…read morealike. On weekends you definitely can't simply walk in and get a table and even during the week the place is usually packed. There's a decent range of modern and traditional pizzas and I particularly enjoy the Greco. Prices are a little on the steep side, but you can't blame the shop because they're always full despite the prices. If you want pizza here, make a booking and you'll be right.

Great food, good sign was they were flat out @ 7PM on 3rd Sep 2016, photo I took was from the back…read morelooking to the front entry door so a little small but there is an upstairs seating area. Good quality eating, a little expensive but well worth the money and the wait.

Amazing. Pizza. What more can you ask for? The prices…read morearen't even much more than Domino's but you get so much more enjoyment. The service could use some work, especially if you're getting takeaway, but the atmosphere makes you feel like you're in Italy. Can't recommend it enough.

Via Napoli is pretty authentic: you'll hear enthusiastic Italian in every direction, fresh quality…read moreingredients are used, a massive stone oven cooks food, and the menu has some very attractive offerings with the most important being of course, the pizza. I came with a group of 6 and we naturally had to order the metre long pizza ($62) al metro, meaning it could be split into 3 different types of pizza out of their 15+ choices so there's something for everyone. Before we did that we ordered some starters; the salt + pepper calamari with eggplant (this was awesome,) buffalo mozzarella salad, and sausage on toast (the name escapes me.) The entreés were good, though portions on the small side...but good start. Onto the pizza...I'm not sure what I expected, but I think I ate a bit of the hype machine because the pizza was just OK for me. The crust was crispy, dough was fluffy, but the pizza itself was a little too flimsy...flimsy enough you had to eat with two hands and the toppings fell off quite easily, so I found it more annoying than enjoyable to eat. I need to come here again to solidify my opinion, but for the time being, if you live near the CBD I wouldn't make the trek out here as there are other places to go. Order a small pizza on the side if you have 6 people, as the metre long will be gone in seconds and you may still be hungry.

Excellent friendly service & great foods - it's like partying at your family place - a must for…read moreeveryone.

Loved this place! Friendly folks but esp Summer who went above and beyond to assist us. We ordered…read more2 pizzas: Lawson and Leura plus the rocquette salad. All of it was delicious. They have cocktails, draft beer and wine to wash down the pizza. My Sauvignon blanc was great but husband got a lager that was made locally. All their pizzas are named for the local towns.

Pizzas were unique and delicious! Salad was spot on. Service was perfect. Everyone we spoke to was…read morekind, friendly and helpful. Great spot!