Carlotta

"Carlotta is an amazing addition to the Canberra city restaurant options! The service was very attentive and welcoming, making it a particularly lovely experience. We loved the whipped ricotta and focaccia and the Chicken Alla Griglia was great too. We didn't love the ragu, as it was more pasta than ragu. Definitely recommend for a great dining experience!"

Ella N

"Was a beautiful place and great service. We were there last night and has a female waitress (sorry we didn't get her name) they were just brilliant when it came to catering for the dietary requirement. The share style to start worked well but the men did need to order a more substantial meal to fill them up. The pastas was not enough. Cocktails were great but I have been there before and the lobster pasta was totally different and had a different sauce which is a shame just didn't hit for us this time."

J MT

"I would say if you are tossing up between Carlotta and Compa - go to Compa.

We went for a 6pm dinner on a Friday night, it was reasonably busy, but I don't think a busy restaurant should result in poor service. When we arrived, the waiter didn't even give us an opportunity to get seated before asking if we wanted drinks. As it was an early sitting time, there weren't many others in the restaurant and it felt like the waiters were constantly asking us if we were ready to order drinks or food. I can appreciate that this could be seen as good service, but we had different wait staff ask us the same question within minutes of each other, and it became annoying. As soon as the restaurant became busy, it was incredibly hard to get service. We were constantly looking around to try catch the eye of staff members to order a drink or even just get our water glasses filled up - at one point, one of the waiters spilled water all over the table and never came back to clean it up, we had to ask another waiter to clean it up. The food service was incredibly slow and trying to get staff to clear the table was painful, to the point that we had stacked our own plates and moved them to the side of the table in an effort to try encourage staff to clear the table and get the next round of food out. When we had stacked our plates, the waiter said 'Are we done, would you like these cleared' - I would think if plates had been stacked, it's a pretty clear sign and answer to that question. He then went on to ask if he wanted us to put the order in for the next dishes. We had the waiter ask if we wanted more focaccia bread, but we hadn't even been given any yet. There was a birthday at our table and the waiter had bought over the 'happy birthday' dessert with a candle when the person wasn't even seated at the table - you'd think at the beginning of the night you'd ask whose birthday is being celebrated and also make sure everyone was seated at the table. When they bought the dessert out the second time, they didn't even give the person the opportunity to sit down at the table - she had literally just got back to the table and was still standing when it was put in front of her. At multiple points across the night, we had wait staff knock into the people seated at our table - we were coping elbows and trying to dodge plates while attempting to enjoy our dinner, even copped a menu to the head.

In terms of food, we settled with the $88 Banquet. The stracciatella was delightful, very fresh and tasty. Personally, I am not a big fish person but the Kingfish Crudo was also great. Other reviews have mentioned that the pasta was undercooked - Whilst the beef ragu was nice, the less than al dente pasta ruined it. The lamb shoulder was really good, however we didn't realise that the eggplant was sitting under the lamb as the lighting was really poor so didn't have an opportunity to enjoy it together. I imagine the combination of the lamb and eggplant together would have been great! Green beans were a bit soggy and were salty. Potatoes were nice but nothing special. Tiramisu was nice but not a big hit with our group.

All in all, the food was good but I wouldn't say there was anything we ate that I would rave about and the service really let down the whole experience."

Gilly Gerry