Mei S.
Yelp
If you want incredibly good Italian, then this is the place to come. Located in North West London, a few minutes walk from Kentish Town Station. It's a very buzzy and friendly local restaurant, where tables spilled outside on a warm summer's day. The owner of the restaurant, Luca, is very hands on, taking time to serve and talk to customers, as well as sorting out take-aways!
You could do no better than to have the specials of the day which are written on the blackboard above the open kitchen.
I love seafood and linguine so when I saw the starter of Linguine al Granchio, I chose that immediately, a very nice clean dish of crab and linguine, with a spicy kick, I was satisfied! My partner chose the tartuffo antipasto, a lovely Italian antipasto with truffle, which he also enjoyed.
For mains I chose another of my favourite meats, the Lambata d'Agnello. The succulent and tender pan fried lamb came on a bed of delicious sauteed potatoes and perfectly steamed broccoli and carrots. My partner had the Merluzzo al forno, baked cod on a bed of spinach accompanied with boiled potatoes and carrots.
For dessert, I decided to try the avocado sorbet, with the vanilla and choc chip gelato. The avocado made the sorbet very, very creamy, so the texture was much more ice creamy than a sorbet, but it was definitely very more-ish and you cannot go wrong with a vanilla ice cream with choc chip, just perfect.
The other dessert we tried was the Classic Affogato which was a vanilla gelato topped with hot espresso. A good hot and cold dessert, made interesting by pouring the espresso on the ice cream yourself.
To finish off, we were given a meloncello, a delicious liqueur with a refreshig taste of melons.
We enjoyed, with our meal, the light and fruity Pinot Grigio Rose.
The ambiance is very nice with an open kitchen and the pizza guy, Alex, happily making pizzas next to the open kitchen. The waitress who served us was also very cheerful and helpful explaining the menu. It is nice to see staff happy in their work which creates a much nicer environment to dine in,
Luca was very friendly and explained about the family photos lining one wall, and I recognised Mia Farrow in one, and whom his father met. He also told us the food produce was from his family farm in Italy.
We had a lovely evening, enjoying good food, and left merrily with our bellies very full. Definitely will return to try their pizzas next time.