Gemma Simply Italian

A lovely little Italian restaurant: Pizza and Gnocchi Bar. We shared a few plates of Gnocchi and a pizza in biancho (not tomato based). Between 3 of us. Absolutely scrumptuous food within an absolutely delightful atmosphere. Plenty of different sauces to accompany gnocchi. Simple, yet genuine, tasty yet not over the top. Little pillow puffs that were soft and light...only 10% flower and gluten free apparently. Coming from an Italian background, we do make home made gnoccli from scratch. Despite Gemma's rendition being different they were very appetising and lovely to eat. Probably one of my favourite dishes to eat at home and I never order them when dining out as it's rare to find them so good. The porcini pizza was in bianco as I've mentioned. Subtle flavours with the essence of truffle oil which is my favourite. Absolutely very yummy. The base was was light thin yet fluffy around the crust. It can be made with a gluten free option if you prefer. The chef also provided us with arancini as an entre. I absolutely loved them...hope they get back onto the menu in the future. The green chilli oil was also an excellent accompanyment to our meal especially with the garlic focaccia. As far as service goes, it was exceptional during our dinner. Thankyou and I look forward to the next dine in experience.

This has to be the most underrated Italian place in Melbourne. The pizzas rival any 400 Gradi or il Caminetti. Plenty of Gluten free options and the tiramisu is wild!!! Already planning my return

Atmosphere and service we're lovely, fast enough, friendly and attentive. The majority of the meals were very tasty and filling too. Unfortunately the gnocchi wasn't my favourite; it wasn't particularly soft and felt "chewy" compared to other restaurants. Not sure if that's because of the gluten-free nature? By the end of the night, what really stood out to everyone was charging us $10 EACH for a 'cake-age' fee (which I'm sure was never mentioned when I made the booking). I feel like that's a bit steep in general, plus we provided the cake and only needed plates and a knife. There were more than a dozen of us too... Overall, the food was tasty for the most part, but we just felt off in the end with that higher than reasonable fee slipped in at the end. This visit was a while ago too, but I just thought in case our experience isn't the only one, it's worthwhile noting still.