I Also Eat: Dinner at Assaggetti

By Reem in : Food // Dec 13 2011

Last Thursday evening, I took the Five Five Fabulous team out for dinner and the restaurant of choice? Assaggetti, a new Italian restaurant in London’s Haymarket. Italian cuisine is always a favourite of mine and after hearing great things about Assaggetti, I knew we were in for a treat. The dining floor is decorated in a traditional, cosy and authentic feel and we were seated in a beautiful table behind a wall of mirrors.

Dimitra awaiting our delicious meal at Assaggetti.

The first thing you notice about Assaggetti is that the menus are always left in front of you, displaying an array of dishes that hint towards a tapas feel. They have created an option to order each meal as a ‘small’, which gives you the choice to taste different dishes on the menu and that’s exactly what we did! The team and I opted for a variety of starters including Mozzarella, Goats cheese, Beef Carpaccio, a mini Spinach and Ricotta pizza, Calamari and of course some traditional olives accompanied by a bread basket, or should I say tin? The presentation was simple, un-pretentious and was all about the food.

For the mains Natalya and I both decided on the Wild Mushroom Risotto with parmesan cheese and Dimitra opted for the handmade Ravioli Scampi. These were served in perfect portions and were full of flavour. It was really the first time I’ve never reached for the salt or pepper with a risotto dish. The desserts were probably my favourite part of the meal. They arrive in miniature dishes so once we saw how bite size they were, we ordered a few more! Between us, we shared cheesecake with berries, chocolate cake with ice cream and each had our own mini portions of Coppina Primavera (sorbet). All delicious and all incredibly moreish.

The highlight of the evening had to be when I ordered a virgin cocktail, ‘something fruity and refreshing’ was what I asked for and the drink that arrived was a cocktail of fresh berries, (no juice) topped with a vanilla hinted cream. It was absolutely delicious and after passing on my compliments to the bar tender, she mentioned how it is always a challenge to create fun drinks that don’t contain alcohol. I have to tell you, she hit the nail on the head with this one! So much so that Assaggetti have decided to add it to their drinks menu and name it after Five Five Fabulous. You can now order it under the name ‘Favoloso’ meaning Fabulous in Italian.

If you make a booking at Assaggetti and quote ‘Hello My Name is Fabulous’ or ‘Five Five Fabulous’ upon arrival anytime during January, you will be welcomed with the ‘Favoloso’ cocktail or a glass of prosecco. Enjoy!