jamie goode's wine blog: Lunch in Kingston: Jamie's Italian

Friday, June 19, 2009

Lunch in Kingston: Jamie's Italian

Fiona and I headed off to Kingston for lunch today. We checked out Jamie's Italian (www.jamieoliver.com/italian), one of the restaurants in the neighbourhood Italian chain that Jamie Oliver is in the process of building.

I was expecting to be mildly disappointed, but came away enthused by the quality of the food. It was really delicious: well prepared and nicely presented, and good value for money, too. I don't mind the no booking policy, either - even though the restaurant was buzzing, we were squeezed in. Service was efficient, partly because they'd actually got enough people working the tables, something you don't always find in these sorts of establishments.
The wine list is quite good. All Italian, mostly from Liberty (a good thing), with the house wines a couple of tetrapak organic wines sourced from Milton Sandford.

We ate (text from the online menu):

BEAUTIFUL BUCATINI CARBONARA £5.95/£9.75
Crispy fried smoked pancetta with ribbons of courgettes, tossed with eggs, thyme and parmesan cheese
TRUFFLE TAGLIATELLE £5.95/£8.50
Finely shaved wild black truffles folded with butter, parmesan and nutmeg, a real luxury
CRISPY SQUID WITH SPICY ROASTED RED PEPPER MAYO £4.95
SELECTION OF TOP ITALIAN BREADS £2.95
Focaccia, ciabatta, sourdough country bread, grissini sticks and 'snappy music bread' with lemon and rosemary gremolataServed with single estate extra virgin olive oil and fine balsamic vinegar
FUNKY CHIPS WITH FRESH GARLIC AND PARSLEY £2.50
RADICCHIO, ROCKET AND PARMESAN SALAD £2.95

We drank:
MONTEPULCIANO D’ABRUZZO 13% 2008 GRAN SASSO £16.95 / £12.75 / £4.55
Cherry and chocolate, typical of this well known grape
SOAVE CLASSICO VENETO 12.5% 2008 CANTINA DI MONTEFORTE £15.75 / £11.25 / £4.25
Great depth and balance of ripe fruit and acidity

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5 Comments:

At 8:19 PM, Blogger Colman Stephenson said...

Jamie likes Jamie's

 
At 9:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What are funky chips?

 
At 1:59 PM, Anonymous keith prothero said...

too many kids for my liking

 
At 10:59 PM, Anonymous Steve said...

Funky chips and crispy music bread make some kind of sarnie you can dance to, I think.

 
At 7:59 AM, Anonymous Mark Temple said...

I ate at the Oxford branch a while back. Starter was nice but pasta pretty unimpressive. S'pose it's a laudable venture to begin to educate the great unwashed, but I won't be going back.

 

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