Once more, with feeling!
Pro Proper Italian eating.
Con Good pizza, but there are better to be found.
Pay €€€
Per Person €27-€30. Beer, shared starter, main, shared bottle of rosé, shared dessert. Gratis: a mini pizza slice, limoncello.
Find
No website. See Fb
Access Stepfree to ground floor eating area. Toilets downstairs.
In Short
Hopes. A relaxing, friendly mother's day lunch.
Reality. All-round quality Italian dishes pleased everyone at our table.
First Impressions. It's late 90s decor.
USP? Bruno Squarcia, the all-singing, all-serving, actor-owner.
The offer in three words. Ecco l'oumo!
Service! Excellent. Be ready for some top-notch banter from the man himself.
Friend friendly? It's Italiano! Lots of vegetarian friendly dishes.
Rating for dating. You can work on your own Lady and the Tramp impression. With soundtrack.
Tip? 5%
Change one thing? Less cheese on some pizzas.
Revisitability. Very good.
Compare & Contrast
Top notch food too at Menomale.
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
Welcome to Ou...Babbo! A pizzeria-trattoria with a fine selection of dishes and its own force of nature. The owner.
Food here won't disappoint. We came for a mother's day lunch so had a wider selection than most times, and our cross section of starters mains and desserts went down well with everyone around the table, including one demanding (Captain Subtext: fussy) palate. Starters? We kicked off with a classic and a new one on us.
Caprese very nearly defies reviewing as it's obviously not cooking. But it lives or dies by the preparation and choice of components, and that requires experience and skill. So - quality ingredients? Check. The bufalata's creamy and generous. Tomatoes presented right? Check. They don't seem to have seen the inside of a fridge. Success, then. A plate of mussels in a spiced tomato sauce came with some toasted bread. Just as well. Otherwise the magnificent sauce would have had us begging for moppage material.
Trying something different, we opted for a shareable plate of baked, filled pastry whose looks really do don't do it justice, even in a photo we've tweaked to try to get closer to the real colours. You'll have to take our word for the fact this is the most...Italian tasting dish you can imagine. Ham, cheese, some nice oreganoey garlicky nessyness. It's like an empanada met a panino who was good friends with a pizza. The three shared a few drinks in some cosy spot and settled down to a lifetime of creative cross-fertilisation. Polyamorous plates...Anyway, slice into chunks and share. Whisper this: it'd make better str**tf**d than pizza does.
Talking of which. It's baked, it's round and it's found three feet off the ground. Hello Disco Volante.
It's a decent pizza, although there's maybe 20% more cheese than I'd choose. The tomato was fresh and tasty, which helps get things close to the right balance. It's generously topped with ham and salame and if you've overdone the starters you may struggle and end up asking for it boxed. Not a problem for us. This flying saucer disappeared to a less mysterious destination than most others.
Other classic Italian dishes are on offer. How about linguini seafood? Slightly spicy, as it should be, it turned up steamed in a nest of foil, which is low-fi in terms of presentation which is all to the chef's credit. Function over form.
Well here's a dessert. Ecco il fuego/fuoco de Etna! Yes, it looks like Pompeii day, with a volcanic chocolate eruption extracting oohs and aahs from our table like an English crowd watching a fireworks display. It's one of the best chocolate desserts we've tried in town. In terms of pure chocolateyness, it's a great success. A sauce that tastes of cacao butter not sugar, this is a coulant with an extra dose of Italian cool. We're copyrighting that, Bruno.
Service is excellent, with the odd minor problem dealt with instantly, courses arriving in excellent time and yer man Signor Squacia serenading the mums in the house with a festive song. Having done his bit as a server he interrupted his own bowl of pasta to recommend that Etna experience too.
Enjoyable food, reliable service and a happy atmosphere. Go do lunch.
Pro Proper Italian eating.
Con Good pizza, but there are better to be found.
Pay €€€
Per Person €27-€30. Beer, shared starter, main, shared bottle of rosé, shared dessert. Gratis: a mini pizza slice, limoncello.
Find
No website. See Fb
Access Stepfree to ground floor eating area. Toilets downstairs.
In Short
Hopes. A relaxing, friendly mother's day lunch.
Reality. All-round quality Italian dishes pleased everyone at our table.
First Impressions. It's late 90s decor.
USP? Bruno Squarcia, the all-singing, all-serving, actor-owner.
The offer in three words. Ecco l'oumo!
Service! Excellent. Be ready for some top-notch banter from the man himself.
Friend friendly? It's Italiano! Lots of vegetarian friendly dishes.
Rating for dating. You can work on your own Lady and the Tramp impression. With soundtrack.
Tip? 5%
Change one thing? Less cheese on some pizzas.
Revisitability. Very good.
Compare & Contrast
Top notch food too at Menomale.
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
Welcome to Ou...Babbo! A pizzeria-trattoria with a fine selection of dishes and its own force of nature. The owner.
Food here won't disappoint. We came for a mother's day lunch so had a wider selection than most times, and our cross section of starters mains and desserts went down well with everyone around the table, including one demanding (Captain Subtext: fussy) palate. Starters? We kicked off with a classic and a new one on us.
Caprese very nearly defies reviewing as it's obviously not cooking. But it lives or dies by the preparation and choice of components, and that requires experience and skill. So - quality ingredients? Check. The bufalata's creamy and generous. Tomatoes presented right? Check. They don't seem to have seen the inside of a fridge. Success, then. A plate of mussels in a spiced tomato sauce came with some toasted bread. Just as well. Otherwise the magnificent sauce would have had us begging for moppage material.
Trying something different, we opted for a shareable plate of baked, filled pastry whose looks really do don't do it justice, even in a photo we've tweaked to try to get closer to the real colours. You'll have to take our word for the fact this is the most...Italian tasting dish you can imagine. Ham, cheese, some nice oreganoey garlicky nessyness. It's like an empanada met a panino who was good friends with a pizza. The three shared a few drinks in some cosy spot and settled down to a lifetime of creative cross-fertilisation. Polyamorous plates...Anyway, slice into chunks and share. Whisper this: it'd make better str**tf**d than pizza does.
Talking of which. It's baked, it's round and it's found three feet off the ground. Hello Disco Volante.
It's a decent pizza, although there's maybe 20% more cheese than I'd choose. The tomato was fresh and tasty, which helps get things close to the right balance. It's generously topped with ham and salame and if you've overdone the starters you may struggle and end up asking for it boxed. Not a problem for us. This flying saucer disappeared to a less mysterious destination than most others.
Other classic Italian dishes are on offer. How about linguini seafood? Slightly spicy, as it should be, it turned up steamed in a nest of foil, which is low-fi in terms of presentation which is all to the chef's credit. Function over form.
Well here's a dessert. Ecco il fuego/fuoco de Etna! Yes, it looks like Pompeii day, with a volcanic chocolate eruption extracting oohs and aahs from our table like an English crowd watching a fireworks display. It's one of the best chocolate desserts we've tried in town. In terms of pure chocolateyness, it's a great success. A sauce that tastes of cacao butter not sugar, this is a coulant with an extra dose of Italian cool. We're copyrighting that, Bruno.
Service is excellent, with the odd minor problem dealt with instantly, courses arriving in excellent time and yer man Signor Squacia serenading the mums in the house with a festive song. Having done his bit as a server he interrupted his own bowl of pasta to recommend that Etna experience too.
Enjoyable food, reliable service and a happy atmosphere. Go do lunch.
