After a hard day of work and a scary experience with what seemed like millions of spiders, my cousin and I decided to rest our minds and indulge ourselves with a pick-me up at Spaghi’s in South Perth. Spaghi’s is one of Perth’s most famous Italian restaurants which deserves its’ fantastic reputation due to the delicious food, knowledgeable and friendly staff, and the less-crammed and crowded seating arrangements.
Although the black squid ink pasta dishes are Spaghi’s specialities, I opted a more healthy-sounding pasta called Grasoli Ripieni ($24.50). This dish consists of hand-made sunflower-shaped pasta parcels similar to ravioli, which were bathing in a glorious pool of a tomato-based sauce with a gentle touch of cream.
I’m not sure what ‘grasoli’ or ‘ripieni’ means, but one of those words must mean asparagus as it was featured in the dish. Inside the sunflower pasta parcels were red and brown onions, leeks, bacon, and sliced asparagus. In the sauce, the asparagus was almost playing hide and seek as there were both crunchy sliced and whole stalks of asparagus waiting to be found as they were placed underneath the pasta almost as if it was a hidden treasure.
For me, the star of this dish was the absolutely divine sauce as some Italian restaurants have the tendency to add a bit too much cream in their rose-style sauces. This is a problem for me as a semi-lactose intolerant person, because after a couple of bites the cream simply takes over and makes me feel ill. What I really loved about the Grasoli Ripieni’s sauce was that Spagihi’s seem to have combined the tomato and cream sauces to pure perfection by not letting the cream to overpower the tomato sauce.
My cousin ordered the Pollo Alla Griglia ($26.50) which is half a chicken that is marinated and then char grilled, served with a garden salad on the side. She is a bit fussy when it comes to chicken, so it was great to see that she really enjoyed this dish especially since it is supposed to be their signature dish. Personally, when this dish was brought out, I was salivating from the wonderful aroma of the chicken. It looked and smelled so good, I almost wanted to swap dishes!
For those who are interested in ordering the Pollo Alla Griglia and have a small appetite, you may wish to share this dish or take it back as take away. The dish is huge and the chicken is a proper fuller-sized chicken. It definitely puts the small size of Nando’s ‘half-sized’ chickens to shame.
My only real gripe is that many restaurants are charging for water these days. Spaghi’s is no exception as they “refuse the right to serve tap water”. Instead, you can choose to order a $3.50 plastic bottle of water imported from Italy, because good ol’ Aussie water just doesn’t cut it. 
But seriously, I guess the imported water provides a more luxurious Italian feel to the meal.
Spaghi’s was absolutely super and was just the ticket to soothe our weary souls with incredible mouth-watering meals. If you haven’t tried Spaghi’s, you are totally missing out!
Rating: 4.5/5
Spaghi Italian Restaurant
35 Mends Street
South Perth WA 6151
Ph: (08) 9474 3339
Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday for dinner from 5:30pm – 10pm, and Fridays from 12pm – 10pm.
Note: bookings are not accepted
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I always feel so sad when restaurants refuse to serve tap water. We are so privileged to live in a city where our tap water is clean and drinkable, and yet some restaurants spend a lot of money (and a lot of environmental resources, bottled water is BAD on that front)) on imported water (that sometimes doesn’t even taste as good).
Your grasoli ripieni looks pretty good! And I totally agree about how overwhelming those sauces can be – I used to (when I ate cream) be so disappointed so much of the time, to feel so sick afterwards.
i loved spaghis when I last went as well. I ordered the squid ink star shaped pasta, and a pizza with quail eggs and various meats. both dishes were divine.
i also have a major gripe against restaurants that dont serve tap water. they really should keep that open as an option.
charging $3.50 for the bottled water isnt so bad though. I wont name names but one restaurant i went to charged $7 for their “italian bottled water”. we had two bottles and didnt realise it until we went to pay the bill. we were not happy!
I totally agree with Steph on the environmental front. I also agree with Mel that tap water should be kept available as an open option as some people do prefer bottled water over tap water. However, the water gripe wasn’t intended to overshadow Spaghi’s excellence as it is the only real fault I could find with them.
I’ve had the star-shaped pasta before due to a recommendation from a friend. It was yum.
It’s nice to know that there are colour variations in pasta… or maybe that’s just me. :p
They look really yummy
Oh believe me, it was!