Spaghi is a lovely local Italian restaurant! It is situated on the busy island opposite Archway station. But once inside the restaurant, the traffic can barely be heard!

The inside of Spaghi is made up of the dining area together with an open kitchen. The back of the restaurant opens out into a pretty area decorated with a wall of fairy lights! The restaurant is fairly spacious; it has dark wooden furniture, an ornate fireplace and small decorations!

For our starter, we had the Melanzana Parmigiana. This was a baked dish of sliced aubergines in a tomato sauce, topped with mozzarella. The tomato sauce was really tasty and it was good that there was a generous amount of aubergines in the dish.  The Melanzana Parmigiana wasn’t too rich and creamy, which made it a good starter dish.

The menu had lots of pasta and pizza mains. We fancied some risotto though but this was not on the menu. We asked the staff if they did risotto, just on the off chance that it was one of their specials that we hadn’t noticed. The staff said that unfortunately they did not have risotto on the menu at the moment.

While we were deciding on the main meal, the same member of staff came over to us and said that the chef could make us a risotto as long as we didn’t mind waiting a short while for it. We were really taken aback that Spaghi would make a meal especially for us. We were offered seafood or mushroom risotto; we went for the latter. For our side dishes, we had sauteed potatoes and grilled vegetables.

The risotto had lots of mushrooms and we could tell that it was a freshly cooked. The risotto was a hearty dish, although we found it slightly salty. But I’m sure that if we ordered it again next time and asked for less salt, the chef would be able to accommodate us.

The grilled vegetables were a selection of aubergines, courgettes and peppers. The sauteed potatoes were sliced new potatoes. It all went well to make our meal complete!

Instead of dessert, we had peppermint tea. It was served by the cup not by the pot. There was also freshly squeezed juices on the menu.

Spaghi really impressed us with its staff, service and quality of food. At the end of the meal, the chef came over to chat to us. He told us that all the food was freshly cooked to order and that he doesn’t have the dishes prepared beforehand. He also told us that he makes all the desserts on the menu and none of them are just bought in. You could tell he was proud of his cooking and the restaurant, and he had every right to be!

Spaghi Pizzeria Ristorante, 6 Archway Close, Archway, London, N19 3TD

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Pizzeria Topolino has the perfect seafront location. As you dine in the outdoor terrace of this restaurant, you have beautiful picture perfect views of the gorgeous coastline. A lot of time could easily be spent relaxing at this restaurant, enjoying the views!

The outdoor dining area is fairly big with the wood fired oven at one end and the chef preparing the pizzas next to it. Pizzeria Topolino did have lots of pages to its menu; it was like a booklet. But after seeing the wood fired oven, my attention went straight to the pizza page!

The vegetarian pizza was huge and was topped with lots of sliced onions, tomatoes and some mushrooms. I had requested it without any cheese. The pizza base was crispy and fresh.

The waiter was friendly and we received lovely service at this restaurant. There was cheesy music playing in the background!

Pizzeria Topolino is a fantastic pizza place to go to on the island of Brac!

Pizzeria Topolino, Frane Radica 1, Bol, Brac, 21420, Croatia

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It’s always good to get recommendations from the locals on where to dine when you’re in a new city! Just like many other visitors in the city, we would have most likely have gone to one of the tourist hot spot restaurants along by the seafront. But we were told about Sperun, which was only a few minutes walk from the seafront.

Sperun was decorated on the outside by lots of greenery and plants. Inside, this restaurant had a really rustic feel to it and felt like it had plenty of character. The white stone washed walls contrasted with the dark wooden furniture.

The waiter seemed a bit abrupt at the start but then mellowed out as he was taking our order and also as the evening went on. There was a big table in the middle of the restaurant which had dishes such as grilled vegetables, olives, and other cold starter dishes.

Initially, I was going to order the chargrilled vegetables, but then I realised that they were going to be from this open display. The waiter did say that we could have them warm; he could microwave them for us.

I don’t usually chose pasta but on this occasion, I thought that I’d give it a try. My meal was simple spaghetti in a tomato sauce. I was so glad that I had this dish. The spaghetti was cooked well and there were chunks of tomato in the dish. The sauce was really flavoursome and had a sweetness to it.

The portion size was small but just right for me. If I had been given more spaghetti, I would have found the dish just that little bit too heavy.

The food was tasty from Sperun! We even considered going back to this restaurant on another night!

Sperun, Sperun 3, Split, Croatia

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