- italian
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We spotted this restaurant driving past one evening and were very impressed with the authentic tasting Italian food. So many of the tourist restaurants offer the same boring menu and you can tire of Thai food and look forward to other flavours so this really satisfied that craving. The menu includes woodfired pizzas and home-made pasta plus desserts which can be hard to come by apart from fresh fruit so instead you can indulge in tiramisu, ice cream, pannacotta and chocolate cake. Delicious with friendly service and reasonable prices. Main courses are £5-7 which is pricey for the area but worth the extra money for the quality of ingredients and standard of cooking.
Kai Bae Beach
https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10150123439150542
Although I love Thai food, by the end of two weeks I was ready for something else and La Fontana was a godsend. Fabulous salads, homemade pasta and grilled meats and fish. They also do pizza but I didn't get round to trying it despite going three times in as many days! Very reasonably priced wine which is very unusual in Thailand. Sebastiano the owner speaks several languages and makes you feel very welcome. All round excellent!
39/7-8 Ratchamankha Road.
200m from the moat / walls (on left) opposite side to Wat Pakao.
Tel: 053-207091
We had an absolutely fantastic meal here, and certainly the best we had in our month in South Africa. It is an Italian restaurant but with a South African twist (I tried Gemsbok).
During the summer there are tables outside, but as we were there during the winter they had a roaring open fire.
It is really popular with the locals but is quite a small place so we recommend booking before you go.
The prices were very reasonable, working out to be about £10 for a main course when we went during August 2009. There were a couple of a couple of different pasta dishes avaiable but we tried the Gemsgok which was just beautiful.
The staff were brilliant - attentive and friendly but not too pushy. They were enthusiastic about explaining the food they had on the menu.
They also have accommodation available, although we didn't stay there so can't comment.
Swellendam is a two hour drive from Cape Town.
145 Voortrek Street, Swellendam 6740, South Africa (Along the main street)
Tel: 028 5141470
Website: www.lasostaswellendam.com/en/ristorante.php
Google map: tinyurl.com/yjn427y
If you're staying in Swellendam as a staging post on the Garden Route, I can recommend La Sosta Italian restaurant.
It's run by a former Milanese optician and his ex-banker wife (he's front-of-house, she's the chef) who decided to down-size their lives and move to South Africa.
The peasant-style food is as good as you'll taste in SA or anywhere else. Try the tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms, or the pork with apples and prunes.
We took our own wine along and they charged us a nominal sum for corkage.
They have rooms to stay, so you don't have to stagger too far to bed.
145 Voortrek Street, Swellendam
Tel: +27 28 514 14 70
Google map: tinyurl.com/yclt3lz
www.lasostaswellendam.com
I love NYC, and always head to this great Italian I found on Upper East Side. It's called Baraonda and is on 2nd Avenue and the corner of 75th. The best night to go is on a Sunday by midnight when everyone is dancing on the tables or even on the bar! The food is delicious and great value. Book ahead.
Our friends and family have just enjoyed a weekend of autumn sunshine in this wonderful part of Italy. Halloween was spent dressing up and joining the locals at a disco in the medieval town of Sarnano, Saturday was spent blowing away the cobwebs by hiking along old mule tracks within the awesome Sibillini National Park and on Sunday we all went for lunch at the rifugio or mountain refuge at Monte Amandola.
This is one of a chain of places to eat and stay at high altitude within the park. The food was delicious and included strozzaprete pasta (literally translated as priest strangler pasta) with a truffle and sausage sauce, meats and home made deserts, coffee and wines and all for €13 a head.
Felice Caffè is a coffee place, bistrot and gelateria, located at Ipanema - Rio de Janeiro.
I loved it there, mainly because of the relaxed atmosphere. The place is very clean and cozy too.
The home-made Italian ice-cream is pretty good! I'm an Italian citizen and I totally approved it!
I also recommend to ask for the tasty sandwiches they have - Felice barbecue is my favourite!
Rua Gomes Carneiro, 30 - Ipanema - Rio de janeiro - Brazil.
www.felice.com.br
I've visited Piccolino a number of times and have always found the food to be excellent.
The service is friendly, attentive and authentic and the waiting staff always make you feel like you're the only one there!
www.chesterexpress.co.uk/restaurant.aspx?restaurant=2&category=2
Set in the Museum Quarter, the restaurant is only a stone's throw from the city's most popular museums and makes an ideal dinnertime stop. It is also fairly reasonably priced in what is otherwise a rather pricey area. The service was friendly, personal and relaxed. More importantly, the food was divine. Good quality, carefully cooked - relaxed dining as it should be on holiday.
Willemsparkweg 6, Museum Quarter
Tel: 020 662 62 06
A wonderful ristorante and wine bar in a 15th century building, complete with vaulted ceilings, in the Centro Storico of Sarnano, near to the Sibillini Mountains National Park in Italy's Le Marche region. They offer you a choice of seven house wines at giveaway prices (we settled on an aged Rosso Piceno) and have a choice of set menu, at an amazing €13, or a la carte. The food is all sourced locally and consists of antipastis of selected meats and cheeses, roasted stuffed vegetables, pasta made with local truffles, wild mushrooms and vegetables, wonderful grilled meats and sweets.
Via Mazzini in the Centro Storico at Sarnano, Marche, Italy
I asked the guy at my hotel for a good restaurant, a place where locals go to, and he sent me to this place. It's near Rialto.
To be honest, we saw the queue and for a while we thought of not going in, but we waited (not for long, the service is very quick, maybe too quick) and the place was great. Fantastic food, good prices and a lot of locals.
Calle d. Madonna,San Polo 594
www.ristoranteallamadonna.com/
Well above average Italian, breaks the usual tourist rule that if there is an English menu the food is downmarket - useful if you struggle with German vocab for food. Friendly English speaking staff.
Linzergasse 10, new town - river end of the street, just a doorway between shops
An Italian restaurant with an interesting menu that covers pasta and pizza but has much more interesting things too. Very friendly service, quite spacious, reasonable prices. I got a table easily on a Saturday evening without booking - a much more attractive option than the noisy and heaving Pizza Express next door!
11 St Benedicts St, Norwich, NR2 4PE -less than 5 mins stroll from City Hall and the market.
This restaurant can be a bit hard to find but worth the effort. Tiny little place with the tables close to one another. Our waiter was wonderful. He brought the pasta dishes in the pot they were cooked in and sang while he put it on the plate, giving us each a taste of each other's meal. Very reasonably priced for the Pantheon area. Two courses with wine for two people was 55 euros. Reservations are recommended.
Via delle Colonnelle 5, 00186. +39 06 6793842
www.ilsostegno.it
Italian restaurant based in Mumbai. It's the best Italian food in India if not in Asia.
Juhu, across the road from the Marriott
Wonderful restaurant, only Italians eating there and with the best lasagna I've ever eaten [out of a lot of competition]. Good pizza too.
Via Caldarese, 5
This quality Italian place, focused on simply executed dishes based on fresh produce is a great new addition to the surprisingly limited St Albans dining scene.
Despite its affluence and increasing popularity as one of the nicest places to commute to London from, St Albans has a pretty disappointing range of places to eat out. Sure, there's the creditable Darcy's on Hatfield Road, a recent addition to the slick Loch Fyne seafood chain on Verulam Road (plus a great, unpretentious curry house in Mumtaj on London Road) but that's about it. Until now.
Cibo DiVino opened in summer 2007 and despite its central, if relatively unprepossessing location behind M&S and Boots there are treats in store.
Service is warm and welcoming, the room is cosy and well lit, homemade bread is offered with your apertif (we had a couple of glasses of appley house Prosecco).
The focus is on fresh regional Italian food (think modern Italian style championed by the likes of the River Cafe or Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall). Some examples from the short but appetising menu are: antipasti (say, buffalo mozzarella with grilled vegetables, an autumnal lentil soup), pasta (I had a delicious rabbit and black olive ragu with fettuccine but there was also linguine with clams), fish (simply grilled whole bream, scallops with cauliflower puree), meat and game (guinea fowl with polenta, a veal chop), vegetables and desserts (honey semi-freddo, tiramisu).
Expect to pay about £50 a head for the works: aperitifs, three courses, a good bottle of wine, coffee. We were offered a complimentary digestif.
We really hope this charming place is a success - it fills a much needed space and does so really well.
Cibo DiVino Ristorante Italiano
4-5 Waddington Road
St. Albans
AL3 5EX
www.cibodivino.co.uk
Tel 01727899189
St Albans City (mainline/Thameslink) or St Albans Abbey (branch line from Watford/Silverlink)
Great Italian restaurant serving hearty fare. Fantastic atmosphere best experienced as part of a crowd. Be prepared to ‘Stand up, stand up, stand up and shake your napkin!’
189 Hester St
New York, NY 10013
Little Italy
The best Italian restaurant in the town. Way better than the more established Nick's Italian Kitchen attached to Kungas Guesthouse. The only problem is that this place doesn't benefit from the panoramic views of the former, but the food more than compensates. Run by a friendly Tibetan - try the chilli chicken pasta, it is awesome!
Joglbara Road, towards the main square if walking from Post Office on the right hand side.
Every time we go to Santa Rosa we always dine at LoCoco’s. The reason? Simple: it’s the best Italian restaurant we’ve been to outside Italy. They offer fresh pasta, fish and meat dishes cooked in a traditional way. The fettucine al cinghiale (wild boar fettucine) is superb. Linguine alle vongole (clam linguine); pasta shells stuffed with spinach and ricotta; penne con salsiccia are but a few of their dishes. But before you can enjoy a trip to culinary Italy, you’re brought a breadbasket with several slices of gorgeous bread and a little bowl of either olive oil or green olive tapenade. So whilst you’re looking at the menu and trying to decide what to indulge yourself with, you can start dipping those thick slices into a bit of Italy.
The service is also unbeatable and all the waiters are charming in the Italian way. They’ll give you a list of special dishes of the day and will help you make your choice if you’re a bit stuck or overwhelmed.
Try to leave a bit of room in your stomach, for the desserts at LoCoco’s are a must. The tiramisù is a favourite, but they’ve also got cannoli and profiterol just to name a couple.
The only drawback at LoCoco’s, we find, is that it fills very fast and it’s usually packed. So we suggest booking in advance and, if possible, early in the week or at mid-week, but try to avoid Friday or Saturday evenings as the staff are so busy that you may have to wait a bit too long for your food.
NB: There are other LoCoco’s in the US but they are not related to LoCoco’s Cucina Rustica, Santa Rosa.
LoCoco’s Cucina Rustica
Historic Railroad Square
117 Fourth Street
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
Phone: (707) 523 2227
Fax: (707) 523 2902
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