Much can be said about Marco Pierre White's personality and sense of style. Known in the 80's and 90's for his behaviour in the kitchen and illustrious Michelin starred career, MPW has since retired and has graced his name upon various restaurants and franchises across the United Kingdom. Bardolino is his most recent foray into the Brum restaurant scene and is perhaps his most personal effort to date.
Bardolino launched with a teaser as a still operating espresso and bellini bar on the second floor of the Mailbox. It's named in honour his mother's hometown in Italy. Bardolino the restaurant is in a trickier to find spot on the floor of the cube abutting the canal. The obvious sign you're there are the wall sized photos of Marco outside and a lobby with a vespa parked inside. It's decked out with a take on today's ubiquitous style of pallet wood, Edison bulbs, jam jar lights, and white tile. It works really well though in making the cube feel a bit more relaxed and homely.
The menu is focused on doing a small number of things very well. Instead of an overly complicated number of entrees, you'll find a one page menu of antipasto, pizzas, pastas, salads, some sides, and dessert. Quality ingredients compete with a relatively low price point for some of the most affordable Italian cuisine in the entire city. Bellinis, wine/beer, and espresso drinks round out the rest of the menu. So far I've tried Bardolino's pizza and one of their pasta dishes. The Florentina pizza is a thin stone baked crust with spinach, mozzarella, and a fried egg on top for £8. The pizza was much better than what you'll find from the high street chains, and included an accompaniment of chilli oil. The spinach and ricotta cannelloni may look like a small portion, but the rich and savoury dish is quite decadent for £8.50. The tiramisu dessert is a perfect end to an already excellent meal, and is about as fresh as you can get. Daily offers range from student specials to free bellini Tuesday all the way to a buy two entrees get a free bottle of wine offer (sun-fri). These incredible deals have produced bills for me that total £22 for two entrees, a bottle of pinot grigio, and a slice of tiramisu.
While the food itself earns five stars from me, the service over my past several visits has shown that there is much room for improvement. On my first visit the staff had not been trained on what special offers were available on that day, leading to confusion and the staff member needing to consult the manager. On another visit, our table took advantage of several offers that day (both the wine and bellini offers) only to be told when the bill arrived that the offers were only good for one per table. This was not the case on my first visit, and may signal a change in policy, or perhaps a further lack of offer consistency. Furthermore, it seems impossible for a bill to be split amongst a party, and heaven forbid you actually try to get out of paying the automatic service charge.
All things said, if you can find your way over and down to The Cube, you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of the most tasty, authentic, and affordable Italian food in Birmingham! read more