Piccolo Italian Bistro — Restaurant in England

Hi! First timers trying out Piccolo's today! My husband and I were greeted and seated promptly from the moment we walked inside from the bakery side of the restaurant - which smelled heavenly.

We sat down, had a moment to gander at the menu, and eventually decided on what we wanted to eat (cheesy garlic bread, and each our own choices of pizzas). But unfortunately, since we weren't handed a drinks menu at the time of when we were seated, we were sat feeling quite parched for a little while (between 10-15 mins), before our server came back around to us to take our orders. It was then that we asked her for the drinks menu, and quickly received one for us both to share. Not an issue whatsoever, but personally for me, I'd rather have my own menu to look at and not share with someone else as it can be a bit awkward.

We got the cheesy garlic bread as an appetizer, which came out and was the same size as their pizzas! Which was much bigger than we had anticipated it would be lol. It was absolutely delicious garlic bread, couldn't have been better! 5/5 stars for the garlic bread alone - the best I've ever had for the price. (I'm only wishing I could have ordered a side of tomato sauce with it for dipping).

Our pizzas were both excellent, as well! I got the one with mushroom + 2 types of olives, and my husband got the prosciutto ham + mushroom one. Both were absolutely mouthwatering, and they were truly some of the finest artisanal, house-made pizzas we've had in a very long time. 5/5 on the pizzas as well, couldn't have enough!! And the tomato sauce base on them was PERFECT. Honestly speaking, I'm someone that is quite picky when it comes to sauces, and I personally don't like a very acidic, hard, tomato-y sauce with my Italian food or pizzas. Within the first bite of something, I can tell right away if I like the sauce or not. But this pizza sauce was perfectly seasoned JUST RIGHT! Not too acidic, not too sweet. The Goldilocks of pizza bases! 👌

Cocktails were fabulous as well. I'm not a big drinker, but love to try a good cocktail with a meal now and again. For me, these were absolutely delicious, refreshing, and soooo flavourful. 5/5 on the cocktails, wouldn't have changed a thing about them, except making them in taller glasses lol 😉

And lastly, we took some cannolis home for dessert - and my goodness.... I don't know where people in Hull buy their favourite cannolis from, but me? I'm buying my cannolis from Piccolo's from now on. Fantasticly well-made, crispy, sweet, delicious, and so addictive!!

Overall, we had a very pleasant experience with our first time at Piccolo's Italian Bistro. The only thing we could knock from our time here is just the length of time it took for our server to get to us time and time again. We were there for just over 1hr 15 mins, but at least 30 minutes of that time was solely spent just waiting on our server to get to us with bringing us things/taking things away. To be fair, she seemed to be the only server working with a mostly full restaurant during lunchtime, so my husband & I completely understand and don't hold it against her at all.

This will not tarnish or leave a bad impression with us, but I'd hate for something like that to negatively affect someone else's dining experience in future; as I'm sure this could set some folks off completely. But as for us, we expect to come back again & again in future to try more delicious items from the menus!

Thank you for having us today Piccolo's. We appreciate all the hard work you put towards serving fine dining and exquisite Italian meals, on an affordable budget. You're our new favorite Italiano restaurant! See you...

We had an appointment in Hull so looked for somewhere nice for lunch. After a bit of research we decided to try Piccolo Italian Bistro on Chanterlands Avenue as it looked good & was not far from where our appointment was. Wow, what a great decision! We were greeted warmly by the front of house young lady & shown to a table. Straight away I thought this would be good as it was only 12:15 on Thursday lunchtime & almost all the downstairs tables were already taken. Menus given & drinks order taken quickly which we like as you can enjoy a drink whilst perusing the menu. My partner chose the Gamberoni (King prawns) followed by Branzino (Sea bass fillets) whilst I decided on Polpetta (meatballs) then Filetto al Pepe (Pan-fried beef fillet strips in creamy peppercorn sauce) A bottle of wine was chosen to accompany this & we sat chatting in anticipation of some nice food. Well we weren't disappointed. Lovely starters & then delicious mains were served up with just the right amount of time in between. There was a vibrant atmosphere in the bistro, some nice background music & plenty of chatter from what appeared to be many regulars having lunch which is always a good sign! One dessert to share & a couple of very good cocktails each finished off a delightful lunch. We had a nice chat with the Italian waitress/ front of house/ bakery shop assistant about looking after customers as we have close links to the hospitality trade. She worked very hard doing all this & made it look easy juggling all this & keeping everybody happy! A credit to the business. We also learned about some nice places to visit in Italy. Chatting to the owner/chef & found out he used to work at a nice Italian restaurant in our home town of Beverley many years ago. All in all, a delightful lunchtime experience, nice atmosphere, great service & wonderful food. We will definitely be repeating this the next time we visit Hull (in about 4 weeks!) & we will also take friends there for dinner one evening very soon. There are many restaurants, cafes, bistros dotted about these days so it is nice when you drop onto a good one & Piccolo is...

‘So happy to discover this spot, which should become your new regular for Pizza night no doubt.’

WAS my review of piccolo - but after trying out dining in at the restaurant on a Saturday evening, me and my partner are not as impressed. I’ll leave the 5 stars, but note the below detractions:

-Stressed manager (waiting staff all lovely, but manager seemed super stressed and forgot his manners at times). Bad table plan: to increase capacity, all corners are crammed with group tables, leaving couples tables at the mercy of all the walkways. We were crammed into one of the main walkways of the restaurant which made us super uncomfortable. food: passable, but generally under seasoned/lacked aroma, overcooked pasta/rice, mediocre bread, and in the case of the lasagne and crab risotto, a lack of quality meat.

I think we came at a bad time, and therefore I wouldn’t discourage you try out piccolos if you are in the area, but I wouldn’t make a journey to try it, and if you do - go for pizza, focaccia, and other baked foods.

See the rest of my previous review:

‘The Piccante Pizza was excellent, soft and chewy dough with a crisp exterior, and great topping choice - I’d be super interested in an Italian sausage meat version next time however.

The Arancini came with a great sauce and I really like pairing them with the pizza, however - on this occasion the rice was too wet and under-seasoned/flavoured. A small miss on an otherwise delicious meal.

I’m excited to try the deserts when I get chance to dine in, they looked great when I came in to collect, and I can tell the staff create a great atmosphere in the restaurant.

Thanks...