Mancini’s Wood Fired Pizza & Pasta

Plonked on a street corner in the middle of Belfield is one Italian Restaurant that will make you want to run blindly through a mine field to gain entry and taste the yummy plates of deliciousness inside.
The manager welcomed us with enthusiasm and cleaned a table right next to the window for us. But the super niceness died straight afterwards as soon as we were servered by the waitress, or Miss No-​Smiles.
The hygiene wasn’t great. Finding dried lemon pulp (at least I hope it was lemon) on your water glass isn’t cool, but I couldn’t care all too much. You might be lucky and get a table with pasta sauce splatters on the napkin dispenser too.
But now to the good news. THE FOOD! My partner and I both order pasta. It was fast, hot, plates were clean, and it tasted a-​maz-​ing!
My advice: order take away. And with $ 11.90 lunches (see their take away menu) pick up only — why not eat the food of the gods in the comfort of your own home.

Poor food, poor service, not value for money.

Mancini’s is a staple of the local area, standing out amongst the generally bereft South Strathfield/​Belfield region. So much so that the restaurant has two locations and a limousine service. The food is pretty decent and the portions are generous, if a little overpriced. The salt and pepper calamari and the garlic and cheese pizza are both great starters and I opted for the John Dory as my main. The fish was well cooked and light; as someone who isn’t a big sauce guy, the seafood is a nice alternative to the more popular seafood dishes. The restaurant has a separate takeaway menu but there is a lot of cross-​over.
The service at Mancini’s is at once extremely friendly and inattentive. After finishing our meal, we probably sat there for roughly 25 to 30 minutes, waiting to see if anyone would ask us about coffee or desert. It actually became an awkward undercurrent, with no one at our table wanting to say anything to one another, but we were all aware of it and were all thinking «How much longer will this take?». Granted, they were catering to a large function in the back room, however, much like the tree in the woods certainly making a sound, unseen customers still exist in the material world. Additionally, we were served our mains as the entrees still remained on the table, at least with half remaining. While this seems like a high quality problem, it felt like we were being excessively rushed given the more bustling activity in other parts of the restaurant.
All in all, I would recommend Mancini’s as a great place for takeaway: you get the friendliness of the staff but don’t have to worry about what the status of your meal is.