Taipei Nightclub-Style Italian Themed Restaurant with Colorful Test Tube Cocktails!

Text and Photos byAhmon

I had heard about Taipei’s Gondola-themed Italian restaurant before and saw many netizens highly recommending it. It’s considered an affordable Italian eatery in Taipei’s East District. This time, I chose to have a gathering with friends here. From Exit 3 of Zhongxiao Dunhua Metro Station, it’s about a 5-minute walk to get here. The restaurant is located down a small alley, with space to park scooters right at the entrance, which is pretty convenient. The exterior has quite a bar-like vibe, which is quite different from traditional Italian restaurants.

There’s something at the restaurant entrance that looks like a statue—similar to ones I’ve seen abroad. Overseas, you can usually put your hand into the middle and something like a fortune slip would come out from the mouth, but this one here is just a decorative piece.

Birthday Celebrant Discounts: With rising prices in recent years, many restaurants have canceled birthday discounts due to cost concerns. But Gondola still offers them—and you don’t even have to be celebrating your birthday on the day, just within the same month. That’s really quite generous. The discount includes complimentary test tube cocktails or cake based on the number of diners. It’s definitely the place to go if you’re celebrating a friend’s birthday.

Business Lunches: If you want to enjoy a good meal with colleagues or friends at lunch but are on a budget, there are also affordable business lunch options. All are set meals, including soup, salad, bread, dessert, drinks, and more. The service hours even extend to 4 PM, offering great value for money.

As soon as you enter the restaurant, a staff member will guide you to your seat. The service attitude feels quite friendly. Gondola Restaurant has two floors—one ground floor and a basement. Usually, you’ll be seated on the ground floor, while the basement is only opened when the first floor is full or reserved for group bookings. The first-floor dining environment is more romantic and elegant, with adequate spacing between tables for guest privacy.

On the first floor near the windows, there are two high-ceilinged and spacious sofa areas, which could be considered two open-style private booths. If you’re a group of 6–8 people, it’s highly recommended to reserve this area in advance. The sofas are super comfortable, and there are even little throw pillows to play with.

The Basement. Walking down the stairs from the first floor, you’ll find a completely different dining atmosphere—the basement has a PUB nightclub style, with all sofa seating that’s much more comfortable. There’s also a small bar and a projector in the basement, making it perfect for parties, birthday celebrations, or achievement banquets. It might even be a great spot for a surprise marriage proposal!

If you’d like a private space without disturbances, there’s a large private room in the back of the basement that can be reserved. It can accommodate 10–12 people, suitable for family gatherings or company meetings. However, the venue fee must be confirmed with the restaurant separately.

Lunch Set Menu: This time we had dinner, so I’m sharing the lunch menu for reference. Prices start from $290, including salad, bread, soup, dessert, and drinks.

Soups.

Starters: Many of the starters are fried items. If you’re feeling quite hungry, you can also order some starters to fill up a bit.

Pasta: The menu offers a wide variety of pasta dishes, with both Chinese and English descriptions, plus ingredient details for each dish, which makes it very clear at a glance. Sauce options include red sauce, green sauce, cream sauce, and sautéed styles. Prices are generally around $300–$400. Dishes with chili icons indicate they are spicy, so do pay attention when ordering.

Risotto: Another highlight of Italian cuisine is risotto. The menu features several types of risotto that are baked with cheese, giving them a richer flavor. Cheese lovers can definitely go for the baked risotto.

Healthy Vegetarian: When I flipped to this page of the menu, I was surprised—the owner really put in effort by designing an entire vegetarian menu, and the prices aren’t particularly higher either. Vegetarian diners don’t need to worry about having nothing to eat.

Handmade Pizza: The pizzas here are 10-inch handmade ones, with quite a diverse range of flavors. There’s even an apple-milk flavor pizza!! It really piqued my curiosity XD. One pizza is usually enough for two people—one person eating a whole one would be really stuffed.

Set Meals: During lunch or dinner, you can upgrade any pasta dish to a set meal for an additional $180. The set includes salad, soup, bread, dessert, drinks (you can substitute other drinks with a $60 discount). It’s quite a good deal. For an extra $280, besides the set meal upgrade, you can also add one extra starter of your choice. If you’re dining with a group, it’s recommended that some members add $280 to get an extra starter, which can then be shared among everyone—this way the meal becomes more varied and cost-effective.

Sangria $350There are actually quite a few cocktail options on the drink menu, so a friend ordered this Sangria. It’s a fruit wine quite common in Spain, made with red wine as the base, mixed with sliced fruits, peach liqueur, orange juice, and more. The portion is quite large—you can clearly see the layered effect, so you’ll need to stir it before drinking. There are many kinds of fruit chunks in the drink, and my friend said it tasted really good. Because it contains red wine, the alcohol content is a bit higher. Interested friends can give it a try too.

● ETNEWS News Cloud reminds you: Minors should not drink alcohol. / Don’t drink and drive. Don’t drive after drinking.

Gondola Specialty Ice Smoothie – $200This was the dessert recommended by the staff, who said it was really delicious. I sneakily noticed quite a few other tables had also ordered it. My willpower was weak, so I went for it too!! When the staff brought it out, I was really shocked—wow, is this cup huge? No wonder the staff said it’s great value!! Made with a base of peach and apple blended into a smoothie, topped with lots of fresh fruit slices and a big strawberry—it’s super eye-catching visually. It tastes sweet and tangy, a flavor loved by both adults and kids. The ice is blended very finely, giving it an especially nice texture. Super highly recommended!

Four Seasons Vegetable Pesto Risotto – $280Because one of our friends is vegetarian, we also ordered a vegetarian-flavored risotto to try. This time we went with the Four Seasons Vegetable Pesto Risotto, which has a pesto base along with tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, boiled eggs, and more. Since there’s no heavy meat component, the risotto looks a bit plain, but once you taste it, the rich aroma of the pesto is absolutely lovely, and you can taste vegetables in almost every bite. The ingredients are quite hearty.

Truffle Octopus Salad Pizza – $380The highlight of the day for me was this handmade pizza. There were many flavors available, and I wanted to try them all—but my stomach couldn’t handle that much. In the end, I chose the truffle flavor because I rarely see pizzas with truffle used outside. Truffle itself has a unique aroma, which is part of why it’s so beloved. When combined with handmade crust, cheese, octopus pieces, and bell peppers, it becomes even more enticing. The pizza is made to order and baked fresh, so there’s a short wait. A 10-inch pizza is usually cut into 6–8 slices, and they’re already pre-sliced on the plate for easy sharing—it’s quite thoughtful.

The cheese on this pizza seems almost free—it’s piled on super thick, so much that it stretches when pulled. Amazing!! Since it’s handmade, the crust is thinner and crispier. The aroma of the pizza carries that distinctive truffle scent, making it feel very authentic. When you take a bite, you get the chewy texture of the octopus and the rich cheese, with layers of flavor. As someone who loves truffle, I fell in love with it instantly and ended up eating more than half of it on my own XD.

Vanilla Cream Clam and Squid Ink Pasta – $290Initially, I actually wanted to order the pesto clams spaghetti, but since I had already chosen a pesto risotto, I was worried about getting tired of the same sauce. So when I saw the white sauce clams and squid ink pasta on the menu—both featuring ingredients I love—I switched to this instead. Even before the herb cream clams and squid ink pasta arrived, we could smell the rich creaminess wafting through the air. As expected, the noodles were served just minutes later XD. Centered around the squid ink pasta, it was surrounded by fresh large clams and the savory sauce—looking absolutely irresistible.

Coating the squid ink pasta evenly with the creamy white sauce and taking a bite, the combination of the rich white sauce and the umami of the clams was truly surprising. The chewy yet slightly firm texture of the squid ink noodles made it impossible to stop eating—it was unexpectedly delicious.

Clams: This bowl of pasta came with quite a generous portion of clams, and the meat was plump, juicy, and full of flavor. Seafood lovers definitely shouldn’t miss this. And if you’re not a fan of white sauce, there’s also a pesto option available.

Test tube cocktails – 12 tubes for $600 (choose any two flavors)

If you’re dining in a small group, we’d recommend ordering just six tubes—you might otherwise drink way too much. At first, thinking they were small test tubes, I boldly ordered 12. But when the waiter brought out the big glass holding the tubes, we were stunned!!!! Oh my goodness, are these test tubes huge? Then the waiter smiled and said these are just the standard size—they even have thicker and bigger ones!!

A set of 12 tubes costs about $50 per tube, which is really not expensive. There are over ten flavors to choose from, and this time we went with peach and grape. The peach tube cocktail even had a small piece of strawberry inside—it was a lovely surprise XD. The peach one used vodka and peach liqueur, plus a bit of cranberry juice. The taste leaned sweet, and with some crushed ice added, it had a slushie-like texture, which we really enjoyed.

● 《ETNEWS News Cloud》 reminds you: Minors should not consume alcohol. / Don’t drink and drive, don’t drive if you’ve been drinking.

Grape test tube cocktail—the color looks grape-ish, but it actually contains gin, so the alcohol taste is stronger than the peach flavor. It’s more suitable for those who prefer a bolder alcoholic taste.

Crispy fries – $100Since I was afraid of not being full, I also ordered an appetizer of crispy fries. They had the chef’s recommendation symbol on the menu. Made fresh to order and served hot, they came with two dipping sauces: Caesar and Dijon mustard. The texture was super crispy, and the potato aroma was quite rich. They tasted even better with the Caesar sauce. Fries are best eaten hot, and they also make great drinking snacks. In the end, we just chatted, sipped our test tube cocktails, and munched on fries until they were all gone XD.

As the night got later, more and more guests arrived. It felt like Guandula really does great business. When we left after the meal, the place was still almost fully packed. So if you want to dine here, it’s recommended to make a reservation in advance.

Overall, what stood out most from this meal for me were the test tube cocktails and the truffle octopus pizza. Considering the portion size, the cocktails are really high value for money, and the alcohol content isn’t high either—so if you drink, it’s quite fun to share them with friends. As for the truffle octopus pizza, they really went all out on the truffle, using generous portions that created a rich flavor lingering on the palate—it’s definitely worth trying. These are just my personal thoughts, for reference only.

Guandula Italian Themed Restaurant
Phone: 02-27711808
Address: No. 5, Lane 17, Alley 170, Section 4, Zhongxiao East Road, Da’an District, Taipei City
Price: $290 and up, plus 10% service charge

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