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| Now if I'm eating Italian, I love Carluccios. The food is always delicious, fresh and full of flavour, and I love the atmosphere. My one bugbear is the noise. I always find it really hard to hear people over the din, as the tables are usually pretty close together. So, I was really pleased to find that Kitchen Italia served food in that same fresh home-made genre, but its light and airy interior gave you room to spread out. I could hear everything my fellow guests were saying, even when it was at its busiest. And most of the conversation was about how great the food was. We began with a tray of the fattest, juiciest olives I have seen in London, accompanied by some Tapanade which even my seven year got into. The garlic pizza (our garlic bread) was served slightly crisp, which was a shame, but we comforted ourselves with the fact that olives are better for you anyway. Once I had seen Tartufi Neri on the menu - Tagliolini coated in a light mushroom cream sauce with Parmesan and black truffles - everything else became a blur. The pasta was cooked just right, although I would have a very slightly heavier coating sauce. My partner had Gamberi, Peperoncino e Aglio - Fine threads of chitarra pasta tossed with sweet sautéed prawns, chilli and garlic - which he devoured happily at an alarming rate, whilst my daughter tucked in a half portion of meatballs. Dessert we had pistachio icecream with amaretto biscuits, which was nice but didn't really blow us out of the water. What did though were the hot crispy chocolate ravioli with Bacio ice cream. I actually think a good dollop of cream would have been better with this but, even so, these were delicious pastry raviolis which made a lovely unusual change. Coffee, as you'd expect, was sublime, and there are laptips that you can use to surf while you sip. A worthy pretender to the Carluccio's throne. 41 Earlham Street London WC2H 9LX Telephone 020 7632 9500 Email earlhamstreet@kitchen-italia.com |
| Posted: 08/01/2010 14:26:37 Last Updated: 08/01/2010 14:27:21 |
Chick Lit > Gourmet Chicks :: Kitchen Italia