Tuesday, April 08, 2014

RESTAURANT REVIEW: da Scalzo (Belgravia)

I went to da Scalzo yesterday with colleagues for dinner before the opera and was more than satisfied with the quality of the food, both main and dessert, and the wine, which was a charmingly fruity 2012 red number that went down a treat.



Being an authentic Italian diner, da Scalzo has a few signature pasta and salad dishes, but is primarily a pizza place, where it boasts the usual you’d expect from Pizza Express, but all prepared with that bit more oomph than Pizza Express’ paint-by-numbers style that has resulted in them desperately offering so many 2-for the price of-1 deals just to get bums on seats. The vast majority of pizzas were around a tenner each, which is very reasonable, given that this is the same price you’d expect to pay in Pizza Express, and for a lower quality. I had the Siciliana, which had tuna, anchovies, vegetables and cheese on, and it suited my palate perfectly, especially the handsome saltiness. Perhaps the only mild foible about the food was that when we asked for food, only tomatoes and onions were laid on our plate. Whilst I like both of those, it would have been nice to have been fed some greens too. However, it would be churlish to whine too much, particularly given the high quality of the service - anything I asked for, the waiter had it to be within seconds.



For dessert, I had a tiramisu, which I find a concoction that’s very hit-and-miss. When it’s good, it’s orgasmic. When it’s bad, however, you might as well just get the Sainsbury’s one, so dull is the mesh of flavours. Fortunately, this sat in the former camp. Creamy, rich, filling and completely delicious, I wolfed mine down in four bites.

Just a couple hundred metres away from Victoria coach station, this isn’t a particularly hard place to find. Downstairs, there is a bar, so if you arrive before friends, you can settle in with a nice Peroni. Across the walls are painted sayings by the likes of Fellini, Euripides and Sophie Loren about the virtues of food, and how it enriches life. Dine here, and it’s hard to disagree with them.

Grade: A-

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