Locatelli (Westgate, Auckland, New Zealand)

This is one of the last few restaurants we haven’t tried at Westgate just merely because Italian cuisine is in our bottom list when we dine out, not a huge fan of pasta and pizza becuase honestly there are many other tasty exciting dishes out there. Don’t get me wrong, we love pasta and pizza but we find Asian cuisine more appealing.

Located beside the sport shoes outlet shops at Westgate Shopping Centre, this place is quite accessible. A good place to have a quick feed after exhausting yourself choosing the right shoe for you. Marketed as an Italian restaurant coming inside feels like a mix of fine dining and casual Italian eatery, high ceilings, clean decor and imitation marble top tables with high back rest seats against the wall. Like any typical Italian place, wine glasses are ready on the tables along with minimal cutleries.

We came here in between lunch and dinner so timing is quite odd, and it was after a nice hike out West. We were handed out the all-day menu which highlighted two main things, the usual Kiwi all day breakfast menu and different pizzas. At the back it was Desserts and Drinks and that’s about it. The only thing that makes the menu Italian are some several items like the Pizza and Tiramisu otherwise it is a typical Kiwi Cafe fare. I am not sure about the dinner menu since we haven’t tried that yet but for the all-day menu you can easily forget this is an Italian restaurant.

On to our order and there is nothing Italian about it, in fact what we had was one Kiwi, one French and one American.

First was the Kiwi Burger (NZ$23.00), a Kiwi classic made with Brioche bun filled with beef patty, cos lettuce, mustard, mayo, pickles, cheese served with chips.

The next one was the French Toast (NZ$19.00), a Banana bread style French Toast with cinnamon, cornflakes, butterscotch, bacon and caramelised banana.

Then the last one was the BLAT (NZ$22.00), basically a Bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato on a focaccia served with fries.

So, nothing really Italian on what we ordered apart from the bread that was used on the BLAT. But that does not mean it was all bad, in fact some of their offering was great, what we liked was the French Toast, we loved how they used a Banana Bread instead of the usual bread, quite creative and it worked really well, it was even topped with strawberries that complemented the whole dish.

I loved the burger as well, the bun was light which gave emphasis on the juicy and meaty patty, they did not skimp on sauces as well which I liked, there’s nothing bad than a burger that feels dry becuase there is not enough sauce, this one was the opposite.

Finally, the BLAT, our least favourite, we felt the bread was quite dry and unlike the burger, there was not enough sauce.

Overall, this place is OK, if we will be rating it as an Italian restaurant then probably it will get a low score since there was not a lot of Italian items on the menu, like I said it was only pizza and a couple of items. If it’s a Kiwi Cafe then this place will be above average, nothing too fancy or nothing to rave about, just simple good food. Apart from that the service was OK, there was minimal interaction since it’s not a full dinner dining service plus the place was sparking clean. We will definitely try this on a dinner time just to see if the Italian fare is on par with what we had tried in Italy during our travels in the past.

Locatelli Ristorante
Address: 1/6 Maki Street, Westgate, Auckland 0814, New Zealand
Phone: +649 832 0040
Website: https://www.locatelli.co.nz/