Dinner at Pete's Place

I have been wanting to visit Pete's Place for quite a while...firstly because I love hotel dining; secondly because I love Italian fare; thirdly because the pictures I saw of the place were lovely. So, I decided to cave into my desire and have dinner there.

Pete's Place is, by the way, located at 10 Scotts Road, Basement Level, Grand Hyatt Hotel, Singapore 228211, and the number to dial is 6732 1234 (catchy, aint it?). It is one of the oldest Italian restaurants around, tucked away in the basement level of the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

The interior of the dimly-lit restaurant is rather old-fashioned in a beautiful, traditional Italian-restaurant manner, complete with red brick walls, shelves lined with wine bottles, dark wooden furniture and tables adorned with checkered red-and-white tablecloths.

After placing our orders, we could hit the bread-and-salad bar for free flow servings of bread and vegetables. Temptation proved too much for us, and we succumbed - starting with an assortment of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, broccoli and garlic cheese bread. The vegetables were fresh, of course, and the bread was crispy, with a lovely cheesy overture.

They were great starters while we dug in, sipped our juices and chattered on.

This photo depicts the quaint, traditional trattoria atmosphere as described above, for you to have an idea of this basement restaurant that has been in operation for around forty years.

Our Mushroom Pizza arrived - woodfire oven thin-crusted pizza. Do trust that it was rather tasty - "rather" being the operative word here - I had high expectations from the great reviews. But somehow, the pizza was kind of dry and the ingredients were a little... sparse? If I may use that term. Granted, the crusts and bread base of the pizza were crispy, and the light hints of mushrooms greatly enhanced the taste of the crust... but we felt that if there were more mushrooms or the sauce used to bake the pizza (tomato, I believe) was spread more thickly, it would've been more ideal.

Next, the Vegetarian Risotto - comprising wholly of vegetables (pumpkin, peas etc) cooked in a light creamy sauce and arborio rice. For a non-meat dish, this was certainly quite tasty, and the sauce was light enough for our liking.

It was rather a pity that we did not get to try their desserts. Read that they're delicious. We spent about SGD$40.00 per person on this meal.

Anyway, the overall dining experience  was rather pleasurable - quiet, even sophisticated, and the wait staff were polite - perfect for dating couples, families to enjoy a good Italian meal or friends to meet up.