Bravo Trattoria

Posh

Nosh

Slosh

Gosh!

So How Good's The Food?

DM Repeat Visit Rating

Bravo Trattoria
Italian. Pasta, pizza, and gelato. Oh, the gelato!
6-8 Falcon St, Crows Nest
Phone: 9906 6630

La Coppa Mondiale

Bravo is a Crows Nest institution. People come from literally miles around to get their gelato. Living close by gives us the additional pleasures of sampling their meals, and eating the gelato whenever we feel like it!

Bravo has a casual, chatty atmosphere, with a ground floor filled with cafe tables and upstairs used for large groups of people. The staff are friendly and cheerful. Friday and Saturday drop-ins can be risky because there's always a queue waiting for a table.

The big advertised drawcard is the famous 101 Pasta Dishes. These are a pretty random selection of classics such as spaghetii carbonara and fettucine boscaiola, and others like penne cavolfiore, assembled from a collection of about 20 pastas and 20 sauces, to make up a hundred dishes, plus "101 Lasagne". In practice, you can order any combination of pasta and sauce you like, effectively making more like about 400 dishes. And good dishes they are too. Pasta cooked to perfection, and sauces that are very nicely done. Freshly ground pepper and as much parmesan as you like top it off.

Then there's pizza. A dozen or so standard varieties, on a thin and crispy base that's fairly close to the real Italian deal. The potato pizza is a marvellous thing for vegetarians, and not bad for anyone else either. They're really pretty good pizzas.

They do a few other things too like some chicken and veal dishes, but I mean, really now, with all this other stuff who cares?

Then there's dessert. Traditional Italian favourites like tiramisu and pannacotta, and cosmopolitan additions such as New York baked cheesecake, although I'm told are good, simply drop dead next to the gelato. They make their own, with sixteen different flavours available. Some favourites like chocolate, pistachio, lemon, and strawberry always available, while others are cycled and occasionally brand new flavours such as apple pie, or pumpkin & honey appear. I like the guava so much that whenever it's available it's one of my flavours of choice.

The 101 pasta dishes may be advertised, but really, it's the gelato that packs the crowds in. The most cost-effective way to get it is simply to drop in for a take-away cone or cup on your way home from dinner elsewhere, or just at random while out shopping. If you're dining in, go for the Coppa Mondiale, a big scoop of each of the sixteen flavours of the day, served in a salad bowl, with enough spoons for everyone at your table.

The biggest problem with Bravo is they don't open on Mondays.