Palmiro

A Ggggreat restaurant by Ben

First up. If you want a flashy restaurant where 50 waiters clean your fork between each mouthfull, I wouldn't recommend Palmiro. Indeed, if you're after a noisy, brash place, full of men in suits comparing Porsches, then this probably isn't for you either. However, if you're after authentic food, fantastic ingredients, excellent cooking and the family touch (the owner works the floor) then you're in for a treat. Palmiro fully deserves its reputation and if the service is sometimes a bit slow it just gives you more of a chance to enjoy the flavours. The wine list is worth a look as well - completely Italian and sourced each year in its entirety by Stefano. I've eaten here at least ten times and will be back there this weekend for another great meal!

Not as good as we hoped by Palmiro

We'd heard great things about Palmiro and decided to go there for an anniversary dinner. However, it wasn't quite as good as we hoped. We had bread and olives, followed by affertati and a duck tagliatelle to start. The affertati turned out to be one bit of salami and two slices of reformed ham with some pickled vegetables - fairly unimpressive, though the duck tagliatelle was really good. Then for mains my boyfriend went for poussin with chestnut stuffing, pancetta and puy lentils which was AMAZING, but my swordfish with sage mash and salsa verdi was bland and boring. There just weren't enough flavours - the salsa verde was barely noticable, the sage in the mash added nothing. We ordered a side of veg that never turned up too. The wine list is good and it's certainly a pretty restaurant, and the waitress may have been inept but she was still charming - but overall, it just didn't quite live up to the hype and at £70 for the meal plus drinks I couldn't say I left feeling it had been worth it.