Restaurant review: San Carlo

It can not be one of a kind, but San Carlo has other ingredients chains can only dream about

6-7 South Parade, Leeds (0113 246 1500). Meal for two, including drinks and service, £ 90

I am a bitter, cynical man with much to be bitter and cynical. I read about a shiny chain of Italian restaurants, is the Manchester branch as a favorite among football players and John Prescott, and alarm bells go off. Jimmy Carr tweets from there to tell the world what a wonderful time he has. None of these things makes me want to run in the roaring "I'll take what they have." This is because I am a snob. When I hear that this Manchester branch of the kingdom claims a circulation – around £ 170,000 in a good week – that puts it on par with Wolseley most lucrative dining spot in the UK, is the alarm went by flashing lights. It makes good money? Something must be wrong. And when I take a look at the menu and discover that there is no longer than one by Peter F Hamilton's space opera (a reference to sci-fi buffs who will nod knowingly, the rest of you just need to be aware of Hamilton's books are wind block thick) I'm starting to lock doors and close the curtains. A chain that can not be all good.

Can it?

And yet for a while now, people I respect have said admiring things to me about San Carlo, the first of which opened in Birmingham 1992nd The latest is in Leeds, a city that seriously needs a few more options. Leeds dominated the Flinn family, who are great chefs, but they have almost become the only game in town. And now is the San Carlo with its shine and glitter, thick white tablecloths, brightly-colored banquettes and large portions at reasonable prices, is just what the city needed.

Yes, it's really absurdly long menu – what are snails bourguignon doing on a list of Italian dishes? – And it is very difficult to navigate. Open it one way and you get an endless list of disk and open it in a different way and you get wine. Open it a third way and it becomes a portal to Narnia. (Look, a boy can dream). And yes, having a separate special deals of the day menu which has clearly been printed for quite a while before yesterday, looks a bit odd. But everything we ate was good in a "I have it again" sort of way.

When frittura di Pesce Portofino in two arrived it was so big, so volumous, that I was suspicious I had been rumbled and they had decided to fry the entire catch of the day just for me. Then I saw the exact same dish that moved on to another table – a pile of golden, lightly battered king prawns, squid tentacles attached and large scallops, the plate is almost grease less – and I realized it was just the way they do things here. A bowl of good tartar sauce, another of chilli dip. Halves of lemon. A feeling that no one really minds if you eat with your fingers. In London, had the charge north of £ 25 for something like this and make you feel like they did you a favor, here it is £ 17.70.

The same is the band of good tagliolini in a ripe tomato sauce with a touch of chilli and the contents of half a lobster for under £ 17, full rested beautifully on the empty shell. Calves' liver, with smokey char of a real grill, came in a unfinishable trio of thick slices with a butter-sage sauce and and rare as requested. We ordered the green beans to make us feel virtuous and a pile of zucchini fritti as it is against the law not to do so if they are on the menu. I feel a sense of shame at the memory of the heap of fragments of rustling battered squash we left. It was wrong, I say, just plain wrong. But then I also have my limits . We ordered dessert, a classic cassata of stock ice cream with a smear of berry jam, but more because the job requires it than to need (although I rather like the idea that at some time ice cream is really needed).

But what was most striking was the sense of a restaurant that knows exactly what it does and why. The San Carlo may have only opened recently, but it is staffed largely by calming mature chaps who look like they have been knocking around with it for a while, and with good reason. Describing the entire operation. So I put my hands up and admit my cynicism was entirely misplaced. It seems it is possible to run a chain that also. Football players sometimes eat at nice restaurants. It is just possible that John Prescott has good taste. Why is San Carlo thrive in a recession? It is very simple. They know what they are doing.

More Source:

Restaurant review: San Carlo Cicchetti | Life and style | The Observer
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San Carlos » Restaurants - Yelp
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Submited at Sunday, December 5th, 2010 at 9:00 am on Restaurant by chuck
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