How lucky are we in Newbury to have two great Italian restaurants. Both family run and both with my usual warning of ‘use it or lose it’ (this doesn’t only apply to restaurants apparently 🙂 )
For quite a while this restaurant seemed to be nearly open and I wasn’t quite sure what was going on with it but finally made it in there a couple of weeks ago with a friend, Andy, who is definitely vegetarian erring on vegan. Yes I can hear you gasping now, how can you be friends with a great massive elephant in the kitchen, well elephant for me but something large and not meaty for him, a palm tree maybe. However he is a great veggy type, similar to my BFF Anne who never fusses but just eats around things without screaming and throwing the plate at me. I really appreciate the non plate throwing not least because I have just moved house within Newbury, am still playing box jenga and haven’t found all my crockery and cutlery so need all the plates that I can get.
OK, in a nutshell, go to this restaurant. It is great food, lovely owners and starting to get busy. They have a great set menu of two decent courses and a glass of wine or soft drink which I have had both times so am really keen to go and try the a la carte. This is unusual for me, normally I get pulled in by the cheaper set menu and then think ‘sod it, lets have the a la carte’. It shows a good choice to be had on the cheaper menu. There are a lot of fish dishes available such as grilled whole sea bass and salmon as well as some very attractive mixed fish dishes such as Risotto Pescatora or linguine ai Frutti De Mare.
Home made bread, very tasty olives and oil and balsamic. Yum
Mushroom Risotto, al dente, a good amount of mushrooms of varying sorts
A proud mother owner with her son
Sounds dull, tomato soup but it was delicious with herb oil and tiny baby tomatoes throughout
One of my favourite dishes anywhere and this didn’t let me down, bruschetta wit a great mixture of herbs and garlic with the tomatoes. A very large portion as a starter.
There are various dishes I have as a benchmark and carbonara is one of them. This was excellent, the pancetta had the right fat to meat ratio and there was egg but no cream. Perfect
Andrews pizza Mediterranea with mozzarella, rocket, sun dried tomato, avocado and feta. He pronounced it delicious.
Andrew, my very patient, non militant veggy friend, one of the most chilled people I have ever met and I have no idea how he puts up with me especially in the middle of moving and my usual madness.