Locale - new Restaurant and Cocktail Bar

[Keef]

I used to like the strawberry vienetta.

[annestafford]

I live right opposite the old 'Green' and have only just signed up to this website, so your piece filled in lots of gaps for me. It sounds really great what you are doing and look forward to eating there. The info about you on the board outside is a bit confusing. it talks about booking for half price training days: my daughter thought this meant staff had to pay only half for training on those days and I reckon it means you are trying to get in customers for training days and giving them a good deal. Who is right? Logging on website will probably answer it.

[Michael Palaeologus]

You can register on the website to get half price food during the staff training days. Its a lottery, so there is no guarantee that you will get a place.

[Rolo Tomasi]

Michael Palaeologus Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> You can register on the website to get half price

> food during the staff training days. Its a

> lottery, so there is no guarantee that you will

> get a place.

Just got an email from them today and I have been successful (tu)

[jollybaby]

Chairs and tables were being unloaded into the restaurant this morning - looks like it's nearly ready. Anyone know when the official opening day is?

[Michael Palaeologus]

I got an invitation to the 50% off meal for Bank Holiday Sunday. I cant do it because it is Bank Holiday Sunday and I have plans.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

They've opened up the windows on the side which looks lovely. I haven't the heart to tell them how often footballs go over that wall - imagine slurping on your soup when a dirty great football lands on your table, followed up by some urchin scrabbling over the wall to reclaim it!

[elizlondon]

I registered but haven't received anything, that's a shame, would love to try it out this weekend!

[seanmlow]

Michael -

I would love your invite in exchange for a bottle!

[janos777]

I hope very much they will knock down the wall facing the playground and put some tables out..Would be nice to sip a cappuccino while keeping an eye on my kids on the playground..

[mikese22]

I ate there last night (half price food!) and it was excellent - menu was great, food was great and service was impeccable

I'd definitely go back!

[4hw]

I also ate there last night and must disagree - there were some real problems with the service (e.g. having to ask for a drink three times before it arrived, things being brought at the wrong time, plates being cleared before everyone had finished eating, spilling wine when trying to pour it). I enjoyed the food, but I really don't think it would be worth the money at twice what I paid last night - I would describe it as competent and tasty, but not exceptional.

PS mike - were you there for the piercing fire alarm?

[mikese22]

no - we ate about 9.30pm - must have missed the fire alarm

[pablogrande]

4HW I don't think you are being very fair on them the whole idea of the half price bookings was to allow their staff training allowing them to bed in before they open up properly, there's a number of restaurants bars etc that have opened up at full price (Chandelier springing to mind) who obviously had staff who had no idea what they were doing. I think the spirit of the half price offer was to give them the benefit of the doubt?

[4hw]

pablo - Yes, I agree we should give them the benefit of the doubt with the service problems given the 50% off nature of the night. I just listed so many of the shortcomings because I was differing from mike's review - I found the service to be less than impeccable! Also I was a bit disappointed with the food - I was happy for the price I paid, but I would have felt pissed off if I had paid twice as much. After all, some of the pastas are nearly at Locanda Locatelli prices! Maybe they are also still training on the food as well?

[Buzzard]

I just had lunch there. Pasta with sausage. It was delightful. My missus had the risotto and that was also very good. The garlic bread was also top notch. They screwed up the drinks order but you sort of have to give new restaurants time to get their sh*t together.

[Buzzard]

p.s. my real name is AA Gill. The above will be appearing in the Sunday Times next weekend but with fourteen other paragraphs talking about how fit my missus is.

[david_carnell]

Went today (Monday) with the better half for a long lunch. Bumped into TillyTrotter so clearly a forum hangout already!

Shared starter of cold meats and crispy bread was very tasty.

Bottle of Viognier was excellent and also available by the glass.

We both ordered seafood linguine which was solid if not spectacular but perhaps a tad overpriced at ?15.

Desserts of ice cream and frangelico and espresso were excellent.

Service good but with a couple of teething problems (i.e. no credit cards as machine was broken and fire alarm going off during meal).

Great coffee.

All round a good neighbourhood Italian but perhaps not a destination which could work against it. Solid, tasty food but a touch overpriced - although not surprising given location. Will go back for cocktails at a later date.

[AcedOut]

I was there Sunday for the 50% staff-training deal and ordered the tomato soup and tuna steak. The service was very friendly and I was very pleased with this in general, especially as this was their first day. I was also very impressed with the bread and the soup. However, my tuna steak was very disappointing. Although the salad it came with was great, the steak was rubbery and overly oily (extra oil definitely not required for tuna!). I'm sure it was fresh, but it did taste as though it was cooked from frozen. I expect tuna steak to flake away at touch, but although cooked 'pink', it was very chewy. I'm hoping this was a one-off, as I was otherwise pleased with the rest of the meal. Oh, and the bread is great! We ran out of balsamic vinegar too fast though - more needed next time!!

[georgia]

We went for lunch on Monday and were generally happy with the food/service - some teething problems with the service I agree but I am sure this will improve. Had a very nice Berry Belini....must go back soon to try the other cocktails

[dulwichbloke]

Went there on Monday for lunch. It was ok and the service was friendly, but I have a few observations. The lunch menu omelette had a lot of cheese in it which was very strong and although I love cheese, it rather overpowered the other ingredients and all in all was a bit too rich. Also, if you have anything with poached eggs in it and you don't like very lightly cooked eggs, it is worth asking for your eggs to be cooked for slightly longer (unless Mrs Bloke's eggs were just particularly runny). I went to the loo and in my tired state got confused by the signs as to where the loo was and in a correspondingly lazy state just popped into the disabled loo (wrong I know, but there was no one else about and it was quiet in the place generally as they hadn't been open long!). Unless I just missed it, there was no blower to dry your hands on and the paper towel dispenser was empty, so I only had the old shirt (the one that I was wearing - not that there was one provided!) to dry my hands on. Given that it had only just opened, that was a bit surprising. As for pricing, the main courses on the main menu were not particularly cheap, so the food would need to be pretty good and next time I would expect more than my shirt to dry my hands on. Maybe it was just Karma at work for me having occupied the disabled loo?

Will definitely try it again though, as it looks good inside and I want it to succeed as it is just down the road from me and ED needs a good Italian near LL.

[nylonmeals]

Had dinner there tonight (Friday) with my in-laws from France and while everyone agreed that the food was lovely, over a 45 minute wait for a bowl of pasta is just annoying. They took off the compulsory 15% tip, but the fact is that the "reason" was that everyone arrived at the same time. Ummm, that tends to happen at the weekend

We will be going back, but certainly teething problems at the moment.

[neilson99]

Having been resident in Blackheath before selling out and moving to East Dulwich, I can vouch that the standard of the Blackheath locale is excellent, very friendly and a superb atmosphere, good menu. Always felt like an occasion going to eat there, hope ED locale maintains and improves on the standard, bets of luck fellas will be along "pronto"...

[TillieTrotter]

As mentioned by Mr Carnell, I went for lunch on bank holiday monday with my lovely son. We had the vegetarian antipasto to share for starters which was pretty yum. My son had the chicken and herby roast potatoes for main which he thoroughly enjoyed and I had the quattro stagione (4 seasons) pizza which was way to big to finish and slightly soggy as too much mozarella on. A large glass of rose and a cola for son plus a couple of glasses of tap water and it came to ?35.00. The service was fairly efficient and very friendly. I wouldnt use it for a "nice" meal, but will definately be back for a lazy lunch.

I loved their highball glasses, very italian and classy.

[taper]

lunch today was grim. underportioned, overpriced, with laughably bad service. depressingly sub-par italian.