There are two Pellegrini Cafes in Adelaide, one in Unley, and the other is this place, in North Adelaide. Perfectly located across the road from the Picadilly Cinema complex, it benefits from movie goers looking for somewhere to eat before or after a movie. Their food offerings read like a typical Italian cafe menu with pizza, pasta, risotto, salads, focaccia, bruschetta and mains.

The cafe is located on a nice corner position with seating inside and outside on both frontages. With windows on both sides, there is plenty of natural light that flows through this place.

For lunch, I ordered the Penne Arrabiata which contains bacon, onion, roasted capsicum and garlic in a napolitana sauce. For those who don’t speak Italian, arrabiata means “angry” and the pasta sauce is named after this to reflect the heat of the chilli and peppers in this dish. While I didn’t take notice of this at the time of ordering, there’s nothing in the ingredients that gives this dish the kick that it should have.

The dish itself wasn’t too bad. The serving size was generous, the pasta was perfectly cooked and it had all the ingredients that the menu said it would have. The saltiness of the bacon was balanced by the sweetness of the onions and capsicum. You could taste the subtle hints of garlic in the well balanced sauce. It was just a shame that there was no heat in this dish.

The staff were friendly and the service was fast and efficient. The atmosphere was relaxed and the pricing was average. The pasta dish set me back $19.90 which was fair considering the large serving size and the quality of the dish.

I’m guessing everybody has their own take on a dish. I don’t mind different, as long as the deviation isn’t too far away from what it should be. I was expecting heat in my meal but didn’t get any.

WHERE: 179A O’Connell St, North Adelaide