During the half term me and my dearest friend Ellie went up to Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant as we are both massive fans of Jamies and were desperate to go, after much anticipation: here's what I thought!
When we arrived (after a bit of carfuffle over where to enter embarrassingly!) we had to wait a few minutes at the desk thing without anyone there and were then seated. I had booked for two but for some reason they had it down for 4.
I also didn't quite release how many seats they had! Their upstairs seating was really big as well so luckily we got seated with no problems anyway.
Our waitress was lovely and I had my Gold Card out on the table so she immediately popped that in her little machine thing and told us what the offer for that month was. For those who don't know if you go on the Jamies website you can sign up for this card and regular emails telling you what the latest deals are etc and I would definitely recommend getting one.
I orderd elderflower cordial and Ellie got pomergranate.
Because I had a Gold Card we both got a free appetiser (is that what it's called?!). Ellie got a meatball in a little sauce on a piece of bread (from what I can remember so don't quote me on it) and I got, being a vegetarian, a tomato nicely spiced salsa with olives and a poppadom. I have to say, even though I hate olives and the dip did taste slightly of them, I still loved it!
Next we ordered an Italian Bread selection to share which again I adored. It was so big as well! Especially for just £3.65 which works out about £1.83 each! It was packed full of breadsticks, sour dough, focassia and all other gorgeous breads with a little oil and balsamic vinegar as well. The only annoying thing was that it is really hard to actually get to the vinegar before using up a lot of the oils because it all sinks to the bottom :(.
For mains I ordered the smaller £5.95 dish purely because it was cheaper but considering the free appetiser and how much fabulous bread you get you honestly wouldn't want anymore. Ellie ordered crab linguine which personally I really can't speak about because I obviously didn't eat any but visually it looked nice.
Mine didn't quite come out as expected to be honest, I thought it would be more of a pasta bake oozing with mozeralla with a crispy bread crumbed topping. It tasted nice don't get me wrong although the cheese did have a slightly barbeque like flavour and the tomato sauce didn't quite have the zing I expected to be honest but it was still definitely worth the money!
As a side we shared some polenta chips as I've heard they are kind of his signature thing and they weren't quite what I expected! I would probably re-name them crispy polenta cubes or something like that. They were also lovely and I love the creamy Parmesan against the crispy outer layer, however, next time I would definitely try the other two chips on the menu (funky chips and posh chips).
Now for dessert they had a lovely selection including tiramisu, pavlova, brownies etc all of which at £4.95 and sounded so fabulous I was struggling to decide. The waitress then told us that they had a new dish, a quin if you will of miniature desserts. Being notoriously bad at making decisions, I HAD to go for this one. I loved the way everything was presented slightly differently, it looked amazing. Now I don't like coffee so the tiramisu tasted a bit to much of, well, coffee for me! I also found quite wet but for coffee lovers (like Ellie) I'm sure it was great. The profiteroles was also filled with a slightly coffee flavoured cream but I still ate it all up! The flavours of the pavlova was so good although if I was being really picky I'd say that there was slightly to much cream and less meringue.
Undoubtedly my favourite 2 were the crumble and brownie. The crumble is a firm favourite in my house hold and I have to say, this was up there with my Dad's. I love the slightly spiced warm pair with the oaty topping and cool icecream. Mm mm mmmm! Now I love anything chocolate so this really couldn't fail but it was so fudgey and decadent. Just truly delicious!
Overall I can't wait to go back and if you decide to go I would highly recommend a) get a gold card which also gets you £10 of if you spend £30+ and use it within 28 day b) try the Italian Bread selection and c) try the chocolate brownie or crumble if chocolates not your thing.
A fairly long post I know but have a great Sunday,
