Amerigo Vespucci

Fresh products and good will. Is that enough?

Went to Amerigo on Friday with wife and sister in law. On entering, I was surprised by the formal and elegant atmosphere of the restaurant, which made me believe we were going to be treated to a "fine dining" experience. And while some of the waiters definitely tried their hardest to keep a semblance of fine dining (our shared starter was served to each of us from the main plate, with final touch of lemon squeezed on our plates just by using cutlery), the rest of the service was ... well... The first fifteen minutes saw a flurry of waiters (at least four) coming to our tables to take our drink orders, none of whome seemed to know what they were doing. It ended up with my sidecar (first drink ordered) arriving after twenty minutes and after my wife's cocktail, which was ordered as an afterthought ten minutes after mine...

Now, the food. the starter of Fritto Misto was good, the fish was fresh and the portion adequate. However, at £11.50, you would expect better than a handful of prawns (a few of which were, for some reason, left on the serving plate and taken back to the kitchen) and two mussels on top of the standard calamari. My seafood pasta was pretty disappointing: the fish was reasonably fresh and well cooked, but fish, pasta and sauce were three total strangers who happened to be on the same plate. The prawn risotto was quite bland and again only had a handful of (frozen?) small prawns. Desserts, in all fairness, were quite disappointing. the amaretto cake was heavy and not particularly tasty. the lemon (or lime?) cheesecake was only slightly citrusy. Our Brasilian waiter (the one who eventually became our main waiter) was friendly and helpful but that was not quite enough to lift the overall impression of a clumsy service. And the food was well overpriced for the quality. As a former chef and true Italian food lover I would not particularly recommend this place. There are many better Italian (true Italian) restaurants around...
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Enrico
5 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 3
Monday, November 15, 2010