Having had our previous restaurant booking cancelled due to 'technical difficulties' at short notice, we knew we had limited time to find a restaurant on a sun-kissed, hugely busy bank holiday in Whitby. Thankfully we happened on Cosa Nostra, a large multilevelled Italian restaurant on Church Street and they had a table free! Shown to the upper levels of the restaurant, it was a good place to relax away from the hustle and bustle on a busy May evening.
The menu had a decent variety of traditional and more unusual dishes from pizza to pasta, fish dishes to calzone. Not feeling at our most ravenous, we opted for two standard dishes, linguini carbonara and linguini ragu, washed down with a pint of draught Peroni, accompanied by some garlic bread. When the dishes arrived, wow, the portions are enormous at this place! Two large bowls of pasta and a generous pizza sized portion of thin crust garlic bread. The carbonara was spot on, the creaminess of the sauce contrasted perfectly with the saltiness of the bacon, the garlic bread heavy on the garlic, as it should be and the ragu full of earthy tomato flavours. Gamely though we tried, we couldn't finish any of the components, as we both were just recovering from a cold. The head waiter was so concerned with our lack of progress, he offered to pack us up a doggy bag! Reassuring him the food was spot on, we vowed to return when our appetites renewed. read more