Il Meletto 4.5 star review: Visited this local restaurant for the first time last Friday lunchtime. We had noticed it had opened some time ago but had not got around to paying it a visit, something we now regret!

It has to be said that this restaurant has a serious ‘kerbside appeal’ problem. It is located above a row of shops and is accessed up a fairly vertiginous staircase and doesn’t do much to entice you in.

However, once up the stairs you enter a surprisingly huge space, simply decorated in a rustic italian style.

You could not criticise the welcome we received. We were the only diners, but the chef and staff paid us the utmost attention, describing each speciality dish and why it was unique to the chef’s home region. He even went to the trouble of bringing us a book on the region so we could see the origin of the dishes.

I had a simple salad with a delicious dressing, followed by ricotta and spinach canneloni. My fellow Beeton had mussels (which as a dedicated mussel eater he described as THE BEST HE HAD EVER HAD) followed by salmon dish of the day. All the food was piping hot, fresh and delicious. The dessert, chef’s own special take on tiramisu was wonderful too.

We had such a wonderful lunch that we returned again with the kids again on Sunday, and I could see this becoming a regular haunt. For good, wholesome well cooked food and a genuine welcome I could not recommend Il Meletto highly enough.

Il Meletto 2.0 star review: Decided to try the New Italian in dunboyne on Thurs 28th January. When we got there we discovered it was a "Special Night", with an all you can eat buffet for 25euro per person. Decided to give it a try.
For starter there was about 6 dishes of Pasta with sauce, then arrived more dishes of pasta with sauce. When we were given a clean knife fork and spoon after 2 courses of pasta I assumed there was a main course to come. After about another 30 minutes we noticed people ordering dessert and coffee so we did the same as we realised there was no more food coming. I also had 2 glasses of house wine.
When we asked for the bill, imagine our shock at discovering it was 79.80. It turned out that dessert and coffee was not included in the "all you can eat for 25.00" and the glasses of house wine (although quite large) were 8euro each. We made a point of commenting that we assumed desert and coffee were included in the 25euro, but to no avail. So basically we spent 25 euro each on a selection of pasta - what a rip off, there wasnt even a piece of chicken or fish in sight. Will not be back !!!