Ace Pizza, Highgate

Ace pizza has a retro feel with neon green lights inside the restaurant and brightly coloured decor to match. The waiters and waitresses try to act funky and had shirts with letters of the name of the restaurant. The restaurant contained mainly couples and families. It's open seven days per week 5:30PM till late. It is crucial for you to make a prior booking before dining in this restaurant. The owner of this restaurant Alex Cucciova also is a co-owner of Cantina 663 and El Publico.

We called up and had not made a booking earlier however, the waiter said that they could accommodate for us. When we arrived however, we were told by the same waiter that we could sit on the couch situated near the front door on a cold winters night as the bar was fully occupied and had limited seating. It was late and we were hungry so we decided to dine in. Despite this, there were empty tables which had already been reserved earlier that were vacant for the entire time that we were placed on the couch which were never offered to us until we had finished our main meal.

As we waited for our meal, other customers who had not made a booking were offered the same option as us, to either sit on the couch or at the bar. Some declined and left the restaurant, it appeared to be a regular occurrence.

It was dark and uncomfortable to sit on the couch to have dinner. It was also cold with the door having to be closed manually every time a new customer came and didn't shut the door after them. This was annoying as there was a regular flow of customers.

There was a limited range of pizza's available and they only make one change as stipulated on the menu, no anchovies. So I guess it's too bad if you have certain allergies or intolerance's if you come here. The two pizza's that we ordered were the Lincon Lady and Godfather. I felt that these wood fired pizza's were a bit plain and that the toppings were minimal. The pizza's were very salty probably due to certain ingredients i.e. anchovies and olives, I could only consume it with drinks. The pizza's were edible though and were okay if you wanted to have a ordinary night out with some pricey pizza's.

The base of the pizza was thin and somewhat unsupported by the base, so we had to use cutlery to eat the pizza. As we didn't have proper tables to sit at, the toppings were falling off the pizza as we held them with our hands.

A jar of chili was offered to us as an addition to the pizza which we could help ourselves to but we decided against this.

Lincon Lady $20 (Front) - Hot salami, black olive, anchovy, mozzarella & san marzano tomato

Godfather $22 (Back) - San daniele proscuitto, san marzano tomoto & mozzarella

Tiramisu Donut $5

When we finally were offered a table we had finished out pizza's so I ordered dessert, a Tiramisu Donut. I felt very bloated by then but I couldn't resist not ordering dessert. The donut was very sweet and contained a liquid interior which didn't contain a strong Tiramisu flavours. I was only able to eat half of it.

This was an average night out and I was somewhat displeased overall as I know that the majority of restaurants would treat patrons as though they were important to the business. This experience made us feel like the restaurant treated us like they were doing us a favour by allowing us to to dine in and suffer the consequences of not making a prior booking. I just hope that improvements will be made to the service in the future. I would however, give it another go.

Menu: http://www.acepizza.com.au/menu/ACE_FOODMENU_WEB.jpg