Il Mercato Centrale Melbourne

The fully gluten free place was fantastic. I had the arancini balls. Thoroughly recommend. My friend had pasta which he also enjoyed.

Terrible food! Went to il Riso and was very excited as it’s all gluten free. Very disappointing. The wagyu beef lasagne had minimal meat in, I was told it’d only take 5 mins and it took significantly longer. The photo doesn’t show it very well but there was a piece of plastic in the lasagne. The cannoli tasted disgusting - no flavour. Felt the service at il Riso was disappointing. The atmosphere is nice and this review is solely reflecting il Riso, not il Mercato.

We were excited to try this place, and decided to go before the Matilda’s/Argentina game. Unfortunately, a lot of other people had the same idea! It was very busy, and I think that affected our overall experience. The food was great quality, and some of it was ready pretty quickly, but for other vendors it as almost an hour wait. I think that where they fell down was having both QR code ordering and taking orders at the till. We were encouraged to order online, but then had to watch as the readymade food was served up to people who came to the till. I didn’t take any photos (sorry, we were just so hungry by the time the food came we inhaled it) but the highlights were the $1.50 oysters (Friday special), the seafood grill (amazing calamari) and the gluten-free Napoli pasta. Shoutout to the guy at Il Riso working all by himself and absolutely slammed with orders. He did a good job!