Vino Rosso

Fantastic Italian Food

21 Jul 08, 15:28 Above expectations

We thought would try this place on Saturday night and were pleastantly surprised. The staff didn't have the best personalties in the world but were pleasant enough. Service was good and the food was fantastic. Complementry bellini. Then I started with the Crab cocktail which was served on a bed of lettuce which was on top of some blue bols (very nice) and to follow I opted for the rabbit pasta as a main and it was delicious. My wife had the scallops wrapped in ham and then an sea bass open lasagne which were both equally very high quality food. The wine was exellent. We were then given a complimentry triple jelly dessert taster in a shot glass and then shared an icecream and strawberry dessert ( which was a little rich). All in all though probably one of the best meals I've had this year. Highly recommended.

Over-ambitious and over-priced

19 Oct 07, 18:16 Well below expectations

A new Italian restaurant in Chiswick. It is a few doors from La Trompette and is very nicely decorated, with wooden floors and insets in the walls with various bottles of wine, along with good lighting. The dining room is fairly small, with maybe 30 or so covers, though that was hardly a problem tonight, as there were only four other diners this evening (admittedly a quiet Monday in January). A complimentary Bellini arrives at the beginning, which is a pleasant touch.

The menu is ambitiously priced, with three courses at £29.50 a fraction more than Pearl in Holborn, for example (lunch menu is £17.50 for two courses). Chef Christian Gardin is from a place in Kingston I have never heard of, and the owner is an Italian businessman.

Bread is warm, a small white roll, a slice of brown bread and a saffron roll that did indeed have the metallic taste of saffron. However the texture of the breads was not very good, the white being the best (1/10). I started with scallops, seared and served on a bed of celeriac puree, with a “dressing” of sun-dried tomatoes. The scallops were small and overcooked, and for some reason they were cooked with the coral attached. Given that scallop coral needs a different cooking time to the main scallop this is an odd thing to do.

The celeriac puree tasted of celeriac but was heavy rather than light as you would hope. Moreover sun-dried tomatoes are one of those things that I had hoped, like kiwi fruit, had disappeared from kitchens these days (0/10).

My wife had pumpkin soup with gorgonzola cheese profiteroles. The wisdom of putting choux pastry in soup is debatable at best, but the soup itself was insipid and thin (0/10). I next had large egg pasta ribbons with wild boar ragu and juniper berries. The pasta itself was freshly made and actually had quite good texture (3/10 for the pasta itself) but the ragu was not cooked for long enough and was a little chewy when it should have been melting (1/10 for the dish).

Gnocchi was edible but not great, stuffed with artichokes and with a somewhat odd pairing of white wine and ginger sauce (round up). My final course was sea bass, but this consisted of three tiny rolls of overcooked fish wrapped around an overcooked prawn, all around a central mound of courgettes which had been cut as “spaghetti”. This presentation was quite fancy and Ok in itself but the seafood was overcooked (0/10).

Halibut was served as a fillet with an accompaniment of mashed potato, artichoke and black olive, which carelessly had an olive stone lurking in it. The halibut was overcooked and dried out, the artichoke itself tolerable (0/10). It should be said that portions were really small, unusual these days, and after three courses and bread I was by no means full.

All in all a disappointment, and priced at a level that I think will cause it to struggle in the area. It is quite ambitious cooking without taking care of the basics. Service was fine. The wine list is entirely Italian and although it lacks prestigious growers was adequate. One nice touch is Moscato d’asti by the glass for dessert.