Elio's Osteria

Last night we visited Elio's Osteria at Carina Heights. Elio's is a lovely little Italian restaurant serving exquisite pizza and pasta and is tucked away on Winstanley St in Carina. There is seating inside and outside and they do takeaway. If you dine in, remember they are fully BYO. They also get very busy, so booking are highly recommended.

By the time we arrived at 7:30 on a Friday night, Elio's was pretty much full. We were lucky to be seated at a table on its own between the main store front and their new dining room, so we had no tables near us, and we got to see all the lovely meals go past.

The menu is a delightfully long list of delicious sounding pizzas, pastas and risotti along with a selection of Italian mains. Entrees start at $7.50 for dine in and go up to $18 for prawns or mussels. Mains start at $16.50 and go up to $29 for a family sized specialty pizza. They have a nice dessert list with dishes starting at $6.

Elio's is very well known for their calzone garlic breads, so we chose that for an entree. The dish didn't disappoint. It was perfectly cooked and the cheese oozed out when you cut into it. We had two relatively large calzones between the 6 of us, and while I'm sure we probably could have eaten more, given the size of the rest of the meals I'm glad we practiced a little restraint.

DD had been through the menu online quite thoroughly before we arrived, and he was set on having the penne matriciana. When the time came to order, he was torn between his pasta and trying a pizza. In the end, he decided to order a entree sized penne matriciana and a small (6 slice) pizza. I agreed to order an entree sized pasta too, and have a piece of his pizza so he could share. We chose to have half Supreme and half Magherita. I chose to have Penne San Paulo. Our dining partners had fettucine chicken pesto, chicken risotto, ricotta ravioli alfredo and a Mexicana calzone.

The interior of the restaurant is very dark, so there are no photos and unfortunately I did not get to taste any of DD's pasta, so you will just have to take him at his word that it was really good. Everyone said that their dish was delicious. The main sized pasta looked huge, and even without a side of pizza I think I would be happy to just have an entree.

My Penne San Paulo was calamari, prawns, scallops, fish and mussels with an Alfredo sauce. Did I mention I like seafood pasta? It was lovely. It was a much more subtly flavoured dish than Thursday night's fettucine del mare. The Alfredo sauce was smoothly creamy, it was almost soothing in its gentleness. The seafood mix was lightly flavoured and really worked well with the sauce. The calamari was wonderfully tender and everything was just amazing.

The pizza was just as good as the pasta. My ideal pizza is very saucy and very cheesy and has an abundance of herbs. This one had all of that. It was one of the best pizzas I have ever had. I could only eat one and a bit slices, but every bite was a delight.

I had wanted to try their tiramisu for dessert, but unfortunately they had run out so DD and I chose to have their homemade traditional chocolate mudcake. Unfortunately again, they only had one of those left so I gave it to DD and had a hot chocolate instead. I did manage a bite or two when it arrived and it was so good it transported you off to chocolate heaven. The mudcake was covered in a divine chocolate sauce with a side of cream and a small bowl of ice cream, topped with a toffee wafer. When you take a bite, the cake almost dissolves into a molten chocolate mouthful. After a taste of that cake, I did not miss the tiramisu at all.

The service was good, and it was as you would expect on a busy Friday night. Sometimes we had trouble catching the attention of our waitress, but when we did she was happy to help. She knew the menu well and made suggestions as to how to get the best out of the dishes.

We all really enjoyed the night, and we are all eager to return. I highly recommend Elio's to anyone who is looking for extremely high quality, well priced Italian cuisine. Also, check out the disclaimer on their website - you have to love a sense of humour.

Elio's Osteria
119 Winstanley St
Carina Heights
Ph 07 3843 1333
www.elios.com.au

Here is a picture of one of their fabulously indulgent pizzas that we had for dinner the following night.