At last a truly quality Italian restaurant in the beautiful Mount Maunganui. Four of us dined last night. The food was fantastic so full of flavour and fresh. Great service. Nice to be able to byo wine as well.
We will be back for sure.
Grazie tanto!
Natalie & Peter

Definitely a very average place to eat. I’d heard the pizzas were good but I went for the italian chicken salad instead. Others around me ordered pasta and meat dishes. We were all underwhelmed by our meals. Decent sizes for sure, but the taste was lacking and if it’s meant to be an authentic Italian restaurant, they’d know not to put in about 4tbsps worth of capers into one salad!! Hardly any chicken either. I had a bite of a chicken pasta with a tomato sauce and it was very bland.
A bit overpriced for the quality. I wouldn’t bother going back here when there are two other, very good, Italian restaurants around the corner. Mamma Mia’s would be my last choice and even then, I think I’d rather just get fish and chips if it was the only Italian place with a table available at short notice.

… Visited Sun 10th March just after the National surf champs had wrapped up, was approx 10-10:30pm. My sister (Auz), brother (AK), niece (Local) & myself (AK) were looking for somewhere to grab a quick bite to nicely fin off our day. After being turned from many places due to kitchen closing or closed &/or bar closing in 30Min’s which I/we couldn’t believe how un-vibrant the Mount was Fri/Sat & Sun night!! We fortunately stumbled across Mamma Mias (could see chairs out front from Maunganui Road so wandered up on chance). We were pleasantly welcomed although they were also just closing up, however the waitress asked chef if he’d cook for us for a takeaway option & was happily agreed to. We grabbed a couple of Pizzas & some drinks etc & ate down the road @ public outdoor table & chairs. Pizza was absolutely perfect! Seriously one of, if not the nicest Pizza I’ve had EVER!! Was a shame we hadn’t heard/seen Mamma Mia’s earlier as 15-16 of our family members went out to dinner the night before & we would have gladly opted to come here if we had known!! So so good, & great/fun people also… Will definitely dine here next time we are down… Thanks again guys!!!

Never again will I enter this restaurant, went there last night with 9 friends and what a disgrace. Says on the door under new management, well in fact there was no management. Two girls working out front but still got no service as one was on her phone txting a lot, neither could understand English well enough to get the message that the food was terrible. 5 of our group ordered medium rare fillet steak at a cost of $35 approx and ended up with medium well done pieces of meat the size of a skinny biscuit with mash and a few carrots on top, not enough to feed a cat while the seafood pasta was like eating rubber. Who ever is cooking in this place needs to go back to cooking school.

Best Italian meal in NZ. We live in Auckland and came to the mount for the weekend. The sun was setting and we were looking for a seat in the evening sun. Lucky for us we stumbled upon Mamma Mia, the food was divine. My partner and I both ordered pasta, the salmon fettuccine is to die for, as is the Tiramisu. The service was also wonderful, the manager is a lovely lady.
We will definitely be back, might even make a special trip back to the mount so we can dine there again

Went today on the first of January there. Food was tasty, house wine was good too. Setting is simple, but ok. Service was poor, but the biggest problem was that the amount served was minuscule!
We ordered 2 main meals for our children, Lasagne to share between a 6 and a 8 year old and fish fillet. Lasagne was only enough for one child. The fish for $33 consisted of two pieces, each 7cm long, around 5cm high and 2mm thin!!! To be fair, when mentioning it we got another tiny two pieces. My 10 year old was left hungry after his finishing his meal. I myself was not very hungry and ordered salada caprese for $18. For this I got 3 slices of a tomato with 2 pieces of Mozarella and a small slice of bread.
Service: Young, friendly, untrained and unwittingly very unhelpful. Admittedly it was a very busy evening and the waitress seemed to be having too much to do all by herself.
After being told that the 6 seater table was not available she went off expecting me to clear off. I ran after her and eventually she agreed to put two small tables together.
We had to get menus ourselves. We ordered for each person one food, my wife and I both ordered a salad. For this reason our food did not come together, but the food for the starving kids came 20 minutes after the salad for which we had to wait around 20 minutes, then another 20 minutes for the 2nd lot of miniscule pieces of fish.
Only once came the waitress to ask if everything was ok. I said no, that we were still waiting the 2nd lot of fish to arrive, her comment was: The chef is not a magician, which is what convinced me to write a review.
Waitress spoke only a little English, i.e ‘I would like a table for 3 adults and 2 children’ was not understood. I had to say ‘table for 5 people please’. Most other questions were answered ‘I don’t understand’.
Maybe the service is better on a less busy day, however there is no excuse for the tiny amount of food dished Moreout.
For the lasagne, 2 salads, one fish fillet and 2 glasses of wine, 2 juices and a ginger bear the bill came to $124.
The amount of food on the plates was the smallest ever given to us in a restaurant.

My friend and I went for Lunch- all I can say it was excellent!!
Wonderful food, great service – nothing a problem-even went to buy Gingerale for my Brandy! Highly recommended and we will be back! Good on you Mamma Mia!

A very welcome deal offer introduced us to this perfect setting, meal and service for a cosy Sunday lunch.
We want to commend and thank Vivian for taking such good care of us.

We had not previously heard of Mamma Mia and went as a result of a voucher deal on the 12th October. The food, wine and service was excellent and we would definitely go again and have recommended it to friends.

Well I went back as I said I would and it was just as good as the first time. (sometimes it pays to go twice just in case i was lucky first time! ) Service from our hostess was perfect as was the food (had the fish with the lemon risotto…yum!). Even tasted lemon cello for the first time. My friend and i were that at home we didn’t realise the time and were the last to leave. But no one seemed to mind at all. Thanks Vivian

We were here on Saturday evening. Service was swift, but food was average. I had pasta with chicken but there was next to no chicken in it and it didn’t taste at all Italian – I make better pasta dishes at home. My boyfriend however had a great dessert – a chocolate puddle pudding which was delicious. Other people around us had pizza and they looked good so I felt a bit cheated with my inadequate chicken pasta dish. There are other better (and cheaper) Italian restaurants in the area, but we thought it would be good to try a different one. Oh well.

We went to Mamma Mia this evening (Saturday) to celebrate our anniversary. The restaurant was warm and cosy and we were greeted warmly when we arrived. Unfortunately, from early on the service was well below what we would expect for the price of the food. To begin we ordered a bottle of wine which was put down on our table unopened. We were left to open the bottle and pour it ourselves. I joked at this point that this seemed like a bad sign and maybe we should pay for the wine and take the bottle to the Thai place next door which smelled great walking past. The entree order was taken without any problems, however another girl came over to take our mains order and very clumsily entered it all into a tablet while standing there and seemed a bit confused about whether she had the right table but didn’t really explain what the problem was. After about 35 minutes waiting for our breads I enquired if they were still coming and was quickly informed that they were. Soon after our breads arrived, some of the bread was a bit stale but overall it was beautifully presented and the edible basket was a nice touch. Things seemed to be going OK, then our breads were taken away and before we could even catch our breath our mains were on the table (I swear there was no more than a 10 second turnaround). I very strongly suspect that they had actually forgotten the breads and had already started cooking the mains, so had to get them out straight away before they got cold. If they had just told us that they had forgotten the breads, we would have asked them to cancel them and just gone straight to the mains. My eye fillet with blue cheese ($35) was perfectly medium raw and was lovely, but it was hard to finish it all so soon after the starter. My husband’s rib eye meal ($37.5) was overdone, the rest of it was OK but there was no way he could even get close to finishing it. The steak was on a bed of mashed potatoes, with roast pMoreotatoes on the side. He loves potatoes but even for him this was a bit much! There was no sauce, just steak and veges, and it was a pretty plain dish especially for the price. We informed the waitress that the lack of a wait between meals meant my husband had no room for his meal and she thanked us for the feedback. When we went to pay we had been overcharged by $12, she was aware but had only refunded 1c. My husband tried to point it out but she didn’t seem to get it and he had to use a calculator to show her what we actually owed. She wasn’t at all apologetic. All in all, it felt like there was no Manager keeping an eye on the staff and they were nice girls but didn’t seem very well trained in customer service. I believe the waitress was dishonest about the starter order being missed and the complete lack of a wait between meals meant that one of the meals was left half uneaten. This place could be nice if someone would take the time and effort to teach the waitresses some better customer service skills.

What an amazing Italian Restaurant! Best i have been to by far! Will go back again and again. We loved every dish from our entree to the main to dessert. My mouth is watering just thinking of it.

Lovely Italian dining, welcomed by staff on arrival and shown to our seats. Service prompt and professional. Dined during the week with few other diners. Food was lovely, well presented and tasty. Portion sizes good.

I bought a voucher deal after seeing this restaurant across the road from the Ivory Bar and thought it could be worth trying out. Being on deal sites my expectations lowered a little (funny that) but they shouldn’t have. The meal and service was fantastic. We had the breads and dips as a starter, salmon and fungi for mains and creme brûlée for dessert. All came highly recommended from our lovely young Italian waitress and she was right. We could not fault anything…perhaps the $6 corkage fee could go but otherwise very very happy and will definitely be making Mamma Mia one of our regular outings!

I found Mamma Mia a quaint Italian restaurant however I felt we could of been sitting at our neighbors table, way too close together and uncomfortably warm. The waiter didn’t know the menu and didn’t know the drinks. The food was ok. We probably wouldn’t go back.

We were visiting Mt. Maunganui for the weekend from Auckland and went to Mamma Mia on Friday night. We were so impressed with the quality of the food we went again for dinner on Saturday night (booking essential!).

We ordered pasta one night followed by gelato and creme brulee, and the selection of breads and 2 different pizzas the next night. Best pizza we have ever eaten – the food tastes fresh and authentic, with lots of flavour. Portion sizes were just right and the atmosphere in the restaurant is lovely. We were also impressed with the variety of exotic drinks available.

There was a bit of a wait for our drinks and meals on the Saturday night, however not unreasonable given the restaurant was totally full.

We will be sure to visit again next time we are in Mt Maunganui.

Went to this restaurant on Sat. 11 August and took two guests.
I agree the food was really good but the waiting time was just too much! Our booking was for 7.30p.m. and we had to wait for nearly an hour for the entree. We had three courses with the dessert being the last to arrive at 10.30 p.m.
One of the first courses was forgotten, we reminded the waitress who apologised and we all waited another 20 min for it to come. The salad was to have eggs in it and they were not there at all. My husband was just so tired of waiting he did not want to return it to wait again.
The main courses all came together but two of the desserts were forgotten although we waited another 10 min and had to ask the waitress. These were only gelato with a bit of chocolate sauce squirted on top, just how long does it take to do this?
Although we would like to go again I am very reluctant. We noticed other diners sighing and getting grumpy. When we paid our bill we mentioned the long wait and they did apologise but in a lighthearted way saying they were just SO busy.
I suggest they employ more staff, check the orders, and generally take a bit more care with their customers or else they won’t have any.

Went with a party of 7 on 16/08/2012. Booked beforehand and table was set up and ready to go. Fabulous food and the waitress was delightful. Only complaint was that it took a long time (half an hour) to get first drinks because they were so busy which I guess is a good problem for them to have. Had a variety of mains from pizza to veal to ravioli, all very good. The breads starter with dips is fabulous, even get to eat the bowl! The chocolate dessert was well worth the 20 minute wait.

We had a 3 day weekend staying in the heart of the Mount. We can honestly say that Mamma Mia Ristorante Italiano was the hi light of our stay, so much so we dined there twice. The food was cooked with passion & creativity that is hard to find in many Italian restaurants with a great selection of premium wines to compliment our meals. We wish the new management & all the friendly staff well & will definitely visit again.

We bought a degustation menu deal voucher. The restaurant has new people and the cooking is superb. Each dish was good and several were splendid. The blend of flavours was careful but exciting. We thoroughly recommend. I’ve written a longer review on my blog http://bigbible.org/sa…

Such a great place to dine in or takeaway! Authentic italian food, great service, lovely wine. A must for locals and out-of-towner’s alike! Totally going back!!