Rate My Bistro

Great quality pizza and a lovely atmosphere is what you get at Portobello Ristorante Pizzeria! The restaurant is fairly small and you can see the big dome wood burning oven situated at the back of the dining area. There is also an outdoor seating area, which looked like it would accommodate the same amount of diners as the inside of the restaurant.

The interior of Portobello Ristorante is quite rustic! It has big wooden beams along the ceiling and bare stone brick walls. It is good that the windows can be fully opened as well, so on a warm summer’s night, it is ok to sit indoors.

We were given some good thick slices of crusty bread to start with! The pizza here is served by the half metre which means that you can order and sample different types of pizzas!

The pizza is impressively served on huge wooden boards that take up most of the table! We had the Ortolana pizza and it did not disappoint. It was topped with grilled aubergines, peppers, cherry tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, capers, olives and mozzarella. The base of the pizza was perfectly cooked: thin and crisp!

We were so full by the pizza that we did not have room for dessert. So, to end the meal, we had some fresh mint tea! This was served by the cup not by the pot.

The staff gave service with a smile and they all seemed like they enjoyed working together. Portobello Ristorante felt like it had a happy family sort of atmosphere!

Portobello Ristorante Pizzeria, 7 Ladbroke Road, London, W11 3PA

Our Rating:

Boston Pizza is a fairly big restaurant with the definite feel of a sports bar! As we were a big group, we were given a long table in the centre of the restaurant.

The chairs were dark heavy metal ones and they had matching tables. There were tv screens around showing various sports, such as golf, baseball and racing!

Boston Pizza had a big menu but we decided to skip the starters and go straight for the pizza. What I liked about Boston Pizza is that you could choose a multigrain base for the pizza or you could just opt for the normal one. Maybe some pizza places in the UK should look into offering such an option!

We had a selection of pizzas so got to sample quite a few flavours! By far the favourite was the Spicy Perogy! This pizza had a combination of sour cream, smoky bacon, potatoes, green onion, mozzarella and cheddar cheese. It seemed like a bit of a strange combination but it definitely worked!

The Vegetarian pizza was ok. This pizza had the multigrain base which was great. The toppings were onions, green peppers, mushrooms, tomato and mozzarella. The vegetables seemed raw, like they had not been cooked enough in the oven. This pizza could also have done with more tomato sauce as the taste of it did not come through.

The classic Pepperoni pizza was also a hit! It was generously topped with pepperoni and mozzarella.

The only pizza that was slightly disappointing was the BBQ Chicken. It was supposed to be chicken in smoky BBQ sauce with additional toppings of mushrooms, mozzarella and cheddar cheese. This pizza was that little bit too greasy and the taste of the BBQ chicken was not that great.

The staff were really friendly and helpful. They were efficient and gave service with a smile. They also didn’t mind turning off the ceiling fans when we said that we were feeling slightly chilly.

Boston Pizza had a relaxed atmosphere and it was a good place for a pizza gathering!

Boston Pizza, 2915 Eglington Avenue West, Mississauga, Ontario, L5M 6J3

Our Rating:

Prezzo initially pleased us both with its food and service. It was towards the end of the meal that this restaurant failed us. On arriving at Prezzo, there seemed to be a nice atmosphere helped by the friendly staff. Wood panelling, nice decor and comfortable chairs made up the dining area.

The bruschetta was a good portion for a starter. Two triangle toasted pieces of bread topped with ripe cherry tomato halves, pesto and served with a bit of salad.

The bianca pizza had a nice crispy thin base and was topped with asparagus, semi dried tomatoes, mozzerella and tomatoes. It was supposed to have goat’s cheese as a topping as well but I asked for it to be left off. The only thing that I would say is that it would have been better if the knives had been sharper. Halfway through eating the pizza, it felt like a bit of a mission to have to keep putting in a lot of strength to cut through the pizza base.

The apple juice was fresh and you could tell that it was not from a concentrate.

Now onto the situation that we had after we had finished eating the main meal. We were given the dessert menu and only after about a minute, one of the staff came and asked if we were ready to order. After saying that we needed a bit more time, the waiter (or it could have been one of the managers) told us that seen as we had the menus closed, it meant that we were ready to order. We did try to explain to him that we had only just been given the dessert menu.

So, we now had the menus open and a minute later, another member of staff came and asked for our order. It looked like we just didn’t get the menu etiquette right: open menu means ready to order, closed menu means ready to order!

We decided to skip dessert as the staff had begun to irritate us. Shortly after, we were told by one of the staff, that as seen as we were not going to be ordering dessert, then we should leave. At this point, we had already got the bill, paid and were sorting out a tip. But after all the hassle and the pushiness of the staff, we decided that they did not deserve the tip.

What happened to the days where you could go and relax and take your time over a meal out?! It seems like more restaurants are like fast food places. The concept of order, eat, pay and leave as fast as you can. What we couldn’t understand was that there were free tables in the restaurant for other customers. Even if the restaurant had been full, we still shouldn’t be rushed to leave.

This same Prezzo on a previous occasion surprised us in a bad way. We wanted to go to Prezzo for coffee and dessert. After being seated, we were told that such an order was not an option. The staff said that we would have to order a main meal and not even a starter would do, if we wanted to have dessert.

It is a real shame that Prezzo gave such bad service and had rude staff, as the food was actually of a good quality!

Prezzo, 161 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BD

Our Rating:

Getti is a mediocre Italian restaurant. I would not say that the food was outstanding nor was it bad.

The bruschetta was generously topped with fresh chopped tomatoes, although it had a little too much pesto drizzled on top. The olives that came with this starter were extremely salty; almost to the point where they were inedible.

The fillet of salmon was ok. The white wine sauce was not that tasty but it was nice that this dish came with green beans. The side dish of grilled vegetables were the best part of the meal. It was a selection of peppers, artichokes and courgettes. The vegetables came with Carasau bread. I’ve never tried this bread before and I would describe it like being a cracker bread. It was very thin and extremely tasty!

Initially, the dining area in Getti looked quite welcoming. It had pale wooden tables and chairs and deep blue walls. But after we were seated, I realised that the restaurant was fairly cramped with the tables too close to each other. This meant that we had to wait till one waiter was done serving one table, so that another waiter could get to our table.

The staff at Getti were friendly and quite helpful with our food queries. We were served our food quite fast. One thing that would improve Getti is if they had more vegetarian options, apart from pasta, on the set menu.

Getti is conveniently located in the West End, but I think that there are better Italian restaurants that you could go to in this area.

Getti, 16/17 Jermyn Street, London, SW1Y 6LT

Our Rating:

Gourmet Pizza Company looks like a beach hut and it may not be exactly next to a beach, but it has the River Thames on its side! The actual location is in Gabriel’s Wharf on the South Bank.

Seen as it is a pizza restaurant, it seemed wrong to order anything else other than pizza. The menu does have pastas and salads as well.

There were two pizzas that were especially appealing. One was the grilled vegetable and caramelised onion which had toppings of aubergine, courgettes, peppers, onions, mozzarella and goat’s cheese. I decided on the other pizza though which was generously topped with tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, roasted peppers, courgettes, olives, mushrooms, garlic and mozzarella.

The pizza base was perfect. It was crispy and still had substance to it as it wasn’t paper thin. The garlic with the tomato sauce made the flavour of the pizza really great.

Gourmet Pizza Company do a range of hot drinks including coffees and teas. The Earl Grey tea was served in a tall latte glass but I always prefer having tea served in a teapot. The fresh mint tea was also served in the latte glass. It was good that the mint tea was not made from a teabag but from fresh mint leaves.

This restaurant has an open kitchen with the dining area surrounding the kitchen. The decor is all wooden tables and chairs and there is also outdoor seating facing the river.

The staff were really friendly and very welcoming. They gave service with a smile and were not pushy in any sort of a way. It made the whole atmosphere relaxing and comfortable.

If you’re ever around Gabriel’s Wharf, then Gourmet Pizza Company is a lovely place to go for lunch or dinner. It would be great in the summer months too! 

Gourmet Pizza Company, Gabriel’s Wharf, 56 Upper Ground, London, SE1 9PP

Our Rating:

This is Carluccios flagship restaurant and it is spread over two floors. The entrance and interior reminded me of a grand home. It has high ceilings, stone floors and a big spiral staircase. We were seated on the upper level, which looked like the private dining area. There are huge windows that overlook the surrounding streets of Covent Garden. It felt like we were dining in a stately home!

The starter of foccacia bread was a big piece. It was a little heavy and plain to have as a starter dish even though it was served with olive oil to dip in.

The Arancini Di Riso Siciliani are two fried rice balls served with a red pepper sauce. One of the rice balls has a mozzarella filling and the other has meat ragu. I found that even just one of the rice balls is quite filling but what would complement this dish would be a salad.

The Pasta E Fagioli soup is described on the menu as being a thick soup with vegetables, borlotti beans and pasta. It was more of a broth based soup and not as rich as I would have expected it to be.

I have tried two different main dishes at Carluccios and definitely have a preference. I would recommend having the Penne Giardiniera. The pasta is served with a nice mixture of courgettes, fried spinach balls, chilli and comes with Parmesan and garlic. The flavours and textures of this dish really work together!

I really did not enjoy the homemade ravioli. The filling was spinach and ricotta. This dish was not at all filling. It tasted really bland even though it was served with butter and sage. Also, the side dish of spinach with garlic was average.

The Tiramisu is a fantastic dessert! It has the perfect combination of coffee, cream and chocolate. The portion was enough to share!

If you fancy something sweet, but don’t really want a dessert, then you should try the Ciocolatta. This is a satisfying thick hot chocolate with frothy milk on top. If you don’t want the spoonable hot chocolate, then you can always ask for extra hot milk on the side and dilute the chocolate down a bit!

The cappuccino is good and creamy and a nice drink to have at the end of the meal. Carluccios do not serve soy milk.

The staff were really friendly and the service was good. Carluccios have a shop on the ground floor where you can buy lots of Italian goodies and treats!

Carluccios, Garrick Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9BH

Our Rating:

Rocca di Papa had such a warm and welcoming feel. It made a refreshing change to other restaurants. What was striking was the original brickwork walls, big canvas pictures and high ceilings. This building used to be part of Christie’s auction house.

The waitress was really friendly and didn’t mind me waiting for a while at the table for my friends to arrive. It made a nice relaxing start to the evening. I did notice that there were a lot of tables reserved but we were lucky to get a table without making a reservation. The service was quick, efficient and the waitress made the effort to recommend items on the menu and to make conversation with me.

I wanted to try a couple of things from the menu as quite a few of the dishes sounded really nice. So, I went for some starter dishes instead of one main meal. The homemade minestrone soup was great. It had plenty of chunks of potato, carrots and celery and other vegetables. It was more of a broth based soup rather than tomato and it also did not have any pasta pieces.

To accompany the soup, I really enjoyed the Perdi Tempo pizza bread. It was not a huge portion but a good size to go with the soup. The pizza bread was topped with tomato, rosemary and rock salt and the quality was definitely there.

I would highly recommend Rocca di Papa if you are in the South Kensington area. Great Italian food and they have a menu that they change with seasonal dishes. If you have space for dessert, then you have to try the amazing Oddonos ice cream! Rocca also have a heated outdoor seating area!

Rocca di Papa, 73 Old Brompton Road, South Kensington, London, SW7 3JS

Our Rating:

If you want some good Italian food, then you can never fail with Zizzi! It’s even better now that they have added some new items to their menu. One of the new additions is the pizzettes. These are three mini pizzas with the following toppings: tomato and pesto, cheese and caramelised onions, peppers and goat’s cheese. The pizzettes are definitely a winner of a starter!

The main dishes were also very flavoursome. The risotto verde was quite a big portion. It had a light fresh taste to it, mainly because of the fresh green vegetables. The risotto had lots of broad beans and large slices of courgettes. It didn’t really have much spinach or green beans.

The penne alla casa was a baked pasta dish with chicken, pancetta, spinach in a mushroom sauce. We were surprised at how oily and greasy this dish was; something that we would not have expected when referring to pasta. It still had a good taste to it though.

We went for the full three courses and had dessert to complete our meal. The sorbetti was specified on the menu as being two scoops of sorbet. It was nice that the waiter let me have one scoop of ice cream and one of sorbet. The flavours were all good!!! We had refreshing mango sorbet, creamy strawberry ice cream and my friend had the blackcurrant sorbet. She said that the blackcurrant one was quite sharp.

The biggest problem that we had this particular Zizzi was that the service was extremely slow. All in all, we were there for hours and that was due to us waiting so long for the attention of the staff and for our food to be served. It was not like the restaurant was that busy or that they were understaffed. It was a good job that we had the starter right at the beginning of the meal, otherwise we would have been totally starving by the time the rest of our food would have come.

Zizzi, O2 Centre, 255 Finchley Road, London, NW3 6LU

Our Rating:

This restaurant felt quite dark even though we were seated near the windows and we were there at lunchtime. The staff came and asked us a few times, quite frequently, if we were ready to order. But then after that, when we were actually ready to give our order, we had to wait quite a while to get the attention of the staff.

The basket of pesto and tomato pizza bread was really good. They were six big pieces. We could definitely taste the quality of the pesto that was used. I would not recommend having the pizza bread as a starter if you were going to have a pizza for the main meal, as they are very similar.

I chose to have the starter of the gnochhi instead of the main course. The portion was the more like a main dish so I wasn’t disappointed. The gnocchi came with cherry tomatoes, cheese and a tomato sauce. It was a nice alternative to pasta although I don’t think the dish really needed the cubes of cheese.

Originally, one of the dishes that we wanted to order was the green vegetable risotto. But then the waiter came and told us that they had run out of that. So the next best alternative was the pumpkin and butternut squash risotto. This risotto was really tasty and it also had wilted spinach and pine nuts. We had it made without the panchetta so that it was a vegetarian dish.

The other risotto that we got to taste was the seafood one. It was also a good choice and had plenty of fish in  it. A nice side dish was the rosemary roasted new potatoes. A small portion but enough to go with the main meal.

On this occasion, we could not have any hot drinks as both the hot water machine and the coffee machine was not working.

All in  all, I liked the food at Strada but felt that dining here would have been nicer if the decor was a little lighter.

Strada, 105-106 Upper Street, Islington, London, N1 1QN

Our Rating:

Situated in the lively Temple Bar area is Frankie Dettori’s and Marco Pierre White’s restaurant. This Italian restaurant was a little dark when we entered but I think that we got accustomed to the lighting.

The waiter recommended a pineapple and coconut non-alcoholic cocktail and this did not disappoint. It was quite a rich drink but a great start to the meal!

The aubergine parmigiana was a few slices of aubergine baked with cheese and a tomato sauce. The aubergine was sliced lengthways which meant that it was quite a tasty substantial meal. A great side dish was the spinach with chilli and garlic. The spinach was cooked perfectly and it was not spicy, which is what I preferred.

We made sure that we had room for dessert! The New York cheesecake was very fresh and it was big enough to for two people. The biscuit base was quite thick which made the cheesecake even more yummy! The tiramisu was presented in a martini glass and you could taste the quality ingredients.

The walls are decorated with cartoon like pictures of various people! The staff were really friendly and when we asked if we could have a different table to the one we were originally seated at, they happily let us move. They also didn’t rush us when it was closing time for the restaurant. The service was efficient and the staff knew the menu well!

Frankie’s Bar and Grill, 42 Temple Bar Square, Dublin 2,

Our Rating: