Opening night of a brand new Italian restaurant in Hamilton = incredibly high expectations from this yelper! Were expectations met? Generally, yes!
I booked a table for here last week thinking on it's grand opening it was going to be absolute mayhem. Turns out we probably could've walked in off the street and still gotten a table, which did surprise me. My lovely dining cohorts of this evening were my incomparable partner Colin and the infamous Mr & Mrs Roo off that there yelp thing on the interwebs.
There were a lot of teething problems, but I think that can be expected from a brand new opening. The staff did seen slightly underprepared tonight, as a lot of questions we asked such as what today's soup was, did this certain dessert come hot etc invoked confused, frantic faces, accompanied with a swift "I'll go find out for you!". As well as this, the service was a bit all over the place, with multiple waiters asking us the same questions, and generally long waiting times between courses. It was busy, don't get me wrong so a long waiting time was to be expected of sorts, but not full; not busy enough to wait as long as we did. Service and general teething problems are the only reason that coveted 5th star is missing.
The food I cannot fault. For starters, I had king prawns in a chilli tomato type sauce with garlic bread, which was heavenly. Colin had the minestrone, Fiona had the salsiccia and Andy had the 'zebra', which was black pudding and mozzarella slices interspersed with beef tomato slices. Everyone's starters looked glorious and went down a treat! For my main I had to go for the carbonara; my main test of a good Italian restaurant. It definitely passed. The sauce was creamy enough for me to be thoroughly satisfied, but not creamy enough for me to struggle finishing it. I'd have another plate just now. Colin had the bolognese which he said was a bit too rich to finish, but really nice, and The Roo Family had the Pizza Eataliano, which was a tomato and mozzarella pizza with sausage on top. Again, enjoyment all round.
For desserts, Fiona and I skipped but Colin had sticky toffee pudding and Andy had chocolate fudge cake. Both looked glorious but incredibly fattening! We then had 3 teas and a cocktail (obviously the cocktail being mine. Hello AA this is Martyn I'd like to book myself in). The bill in total came to under £85 for 4 people which I think is great value for money considering how much I enjoyed it. I went with high expectations which I think were met, and teething problems in a brand new restaurant can only be expected. Give it a year and it'll be great I think! read more