We-e-e-e-ellllllllll, you make me wanna...SHOUT!
Pro Some proper pizza flavours plus more.
Con It's on the LOUD side.
Pay
€€€
Per Person €32-35 Shared starter & dessert, half bottle of wine, water. Gratis: Limoncello.
Find
Website http://www.restaurantelunarossa.com/
Access Step free to ground floor eating area. Toilets downstairs.
In Short
Hopes. Enough good stuff for a small-scale works do.
Reality. Four satisfied newcomers can't be too bad.
First Impressions. Trad trattoria tiling meets high-end hipster bare brickwork.
USP? Some smart work in the wood-fired oven.
The offer in three words. Red-check tablecloths required.
Service! Aimiable and generally well on top of things on a busy night.
Friend friendly? Plenty of options, we think.
Rating for dating. Food and decor are good, but you might end up shouting sweet nothings.
Tip? 5-8%
Change one thing? That ambient noise level turns conversations into shoutathons.
Revisitability. Good to very good.
Compare & Contrast
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
There's authenticity in the air in Luna Rossa, with flavours, decor and service working in its favour. Only the spectacularly cacophonous ambience works against it. What's that? What did you say? If you didn't hear me say it's incredibly noisy, there'd be a reason...
We're looking to expand our pizza options. Or our pizza base, if you will. We're after more decent restaurants with good dough. In other words, tasty pizza bases. Come to think of it, a pizzeria is a pizza base. So, in short, we're looking for tasty pizza bases at well-run pizza bases to improve our pizza base. And we're doing this on a regular basis.
At least that's all clear, then. Luna Rossa's just off San Bernardo. Inside it's tidy and smart, with the kitchen in view at the far end of the ground floor eating area. A group of five tonight, we had a bash at some alternative starters on this do and kicked off with a roasted cod salad, and a plateful of cheeses and piggy products.
Not going to lie, the photo doesn't do that fishy salad justice, although hopefully you get the scale of it.
Fish.
Scale.
Tumbleweed. Right then.
Look, it was terrific - we're talking fresh cod, not the salt-dried and milk-moistened back to blandness version - surrounded by vinagraitted olives of many colours, tomatoes that looked like chillis, onions and all sorts. This is a great sharing starter - excellently light, but not lacking in flavour or rumbustiousness. It's a good one. It gets better for omnivores as the sharing platter's up there too. Cheeses presented at just the right temperature, including a delicious option coated in a dryish olive tapenade. The parmigiano was wonderful, too. On the meaty side, ham and mortadella set it off well. Such great flavours, presented right, do make us want to see them given their due, so we'd have had more of the toasted bread. A nice bottle of oil on the table would have finished things off perfectly.
There's a wood-fuelled igloo-type oven at Luna Rossa. As a result, your pizza arrives red hot, with a decent bit of scorching going on underneath. The parallels between carbonisation on pizza bases and soccarat in paella is interesting. There's a similar seasoning effect which is very pleasing when it's there. And it's here. The splendid Arrabiata 'as a very 'ealthy splodgetón of 'nduja and therefore it's got proper spice to it, plus the right proportion of very melty cheese to lots of tomato. I'd like a more crackly crust, but it's as fresh as you could ask for. Excellent work. Four cheese pizza was also a success, with plenty of acidity from the stronger cheeses, but the kind of near-liquid topping that some might find a touch too traditional. I thought it was terrific, but others might want something less mushy and more defined. Fair enough.
Bacalao pasta disappointed a bit, perhaps the filling wasn't the fresh cod but the revived one, not sure. I tried it. I liked the acidy tomatoes and thought it balanced OK. But, yep, it was balancing blandness. There's not far to travel, there.
Two decent desserty classics rounded things off. A colossal Rum Baba, like a giant, boozy sponge champagne cork, dunked in alcohol. Oh, and a first class Tiramisu, too. You'll be happy with one or either. We got both. I feel your jealousy growing. I can live with it, quite honestly.
Service was good, a couple of drinks got forgotten, but reminders saw things quickly sorted out. It was prompt, chatty, very Italian and also in need of glasses perhaps as one friendly fellow confided later that he was convinced one of our group was Eric Clapton. Whether that helped get us the limoncello chupito I know not, but never say no to a strange brew or two.
So look, go. Just take some in-ear monitor speakers and a decent bluetooth kit so you can hear the people around you.
And book Eric.
Pro Some proper pizza flavours plus more.
Con It's on the LOUD side.
Pay
€€€
Per Person €32-35 Shared starter & dessert, half bottle of wine, water. Gratis: Limoncello.
Find
Website http://www.restaurantelunarossa.com/
Access Step free to ground floor eating area. Toilets downstairs.
In Short
Hopes. Enough good stuff for a small-scale works do.
Reality. Four satisfied newcomers can't be too bad.
First Impressions. Trad trattoria tiling meets high-end hipster bare brickwork.
USP? Some smart work in the wood-fired oven.
The offer in three words. Red-check tablecloths required.
Service! Aimiable and generally well on top of things on a busy night.
Friend friendly? Plenty of options, we think.
Rating for dating. Food and decor are good, but you might end up shouting sweet nothings.
Tip? 5-8%
Change one thing? That ambient noise level turns conversations into shoutathons.
Revisitability. Good to very good.
Compare & Contrast
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
There's authenticity in the air in Luna Rossa, with flavours, decor and service working in its favour. Only the spectacularly cacophonous ambience works against it. What's that? What did you say? If you didn't hear me say it's incredibly noisy, there'd be a reason...
We're looking to expand our pizza options. Or our pizza base, if you will. We're after more decent restaurants with good dough. In other words, tasty pizza bases. Come to think of it, a pizzeria is a pizza base. So, in short, we're looking for tasty pizza bases at well-run pizza bases to improve our pizza base. And we're doing this on a regular basis.
At least that's all clear, then. Luna Rossa's just off San Bernardo. Inside it's tidy and smart, with the kitchen in view at the far end of the ground floor eating area. A group of five tonight, we had a bash at some alternative starters on this do and kicked off with a roasted cod salad, and a plateful of cheeses and piggy products.
Not going to lie, the photo doesn't do that fishy salad justice, although hopefully you get the scale of it.
Fish.
Scale.
Tumbleweed. Right then.
Look, it was terrific - we're talking fresh cod, not the salt-dried and milk-moistened back to blandness version - surrounded by vinagraitted olives of many colours, tomatoes that looked like chillis, onions and all sorts. This is a great sharing starter - excellently light, but not lacking in flavour or rumbustiousness. It's a good one. It gets better for omnivores as the sharing platter's up there too. Cheeses presented at just the right temperature, including a delicious option coated in a dryish olive tapenade. The parmigiano was wonderful, too. On the meaty side, ham and mortadella set it off well. Such great flavours, presented right, do make us want to see them given their due, so we'd have had more of the toasted bread. A nice bottle of oil on the table would have finished things off perfectly.
There's a wood-fuelled igloo-type oven at Luna Rossa. As a result, your pizza arrives red hot, with a decent bit of scorching going on underneath. The parallels between carbonisation on pizza bases and soccarat in paella is interesting. There's a similar seasoning effect which is very pleasing when it's there. And it's here. The splendid Arrabiata 'as a very 'ealthy splodgetón of 'nduja and therefore it's got proper spice to it, plus the right proportion of very melty cheese to lots of tomato. I'd like a more crackly crust, but it's as fresh as you could ask for. Excellent work. Four cheese pizza was also a success, with plenty of acidity from the stronger cheeses, but the kind of near-liquid topping that some might find a touch too traditional. I thought it was terrific, but others might want something less mushy and more defined. Fair enough.
Service was good, a couple of drinks got forgotten, but reminders saw things quickly sorted out. It was prompt, chatty, very Italian and also in need of glasses perhaps as one friendly fellow confided later that he was convinced one of our group was Eric Clapton. Whether that helped get us the limoncello chupito I know not, but never say no to a strange brew or two.
So look, go. Just take some in-ear monitor speakers and a decent bluetooth kit so you can hear the people around you.
And book Eric.