Marzanno, Kensington High St., ***

Hello guys, here I am recovering from New Year’s celebration.

Yesterday we started our quest for a decent Italian restaurant. The first one we tried was the Marzanno in the Kensington High Street right in front of the western side of my building. The name of the restaurant is very promising as it sounds like a traditional Italian surname and the names of the dishes were all written in Italian.

It was not very full and the first thing I noticed is that none of the people serving was Italian. The guys in the kitchen, however, could be Italians.

I ordered a salad with mozzarella dices and a beef with gorgonzola and baked potatoes. My wife ordered some shrimps and a pasta with seafood. I have ordered also 175ml of white Sicilian wine for my wife and 250ml o red Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wine for me. In Italy, when you order wine in this way they give you a small jar with the wine and the glass. In that restaurant they gave the glasses containing all the ordered amount.

Obviously, my glass was so full that I couldn’t move it to try to make the wine breath, allowing me to prepare it for tasting. The wine was pretty good anyway. Maybe they have bottled it a little too soon, but it was good anyway.

Then my salad arrived. Well, it was clearly not made by Italians. They have made the salad with all the fresh ingredients and then just dropped pesto on it. You couldn’t feel the taste of any ingredient as the garlic and basil in the pesto were covering it all. Not good.

My wife’s shrimps were all simple but they have put also a tomato sauce that was completely out of place.

After the entries the main courses: My wife’s pasta and my beef.

My wife’s pasta was nothing special. The tomato sauce was tasting like these canned ones that you can find at the supermarket and the seafood was tasteless.

My beef was accompanied by baked potatoes, some green salad and gorgonzola cubes. The cheese was good, but it was nothing even close to a real gorgonzola. It tasted completely different, had a completely different texture and etc. It was like they god some cheese and changed the label only saying that it was gorgonzola. The beef and the potatoes were very good tough.

Just to end it all, we got the desserts and I picked up a cheesecake that would be pretty safe. My wife instead decided to take a tiramisu. Well… She regretted it. :-D

The place itself was comfy and the service was good. The bill was fair… Maybe a bit higher than my expectations.

My final vote for this restaurant would be 3 of 5 stars as the food was pretty decent for everyone who has never tried real Italian food.