Italian Bistro (Italian Restaurant) — Restaurant in London

So when we drop the dogs to The Mud Room, we usually get some food for lunch. Normally, it would be SW16 Bar and Kitchen. However, the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was non-existent at that place.

We were stuck for choices. So although Google is not our friend, it is a tool. So we got recommended by them and the SW16 to go here. And oh boy, were we glad too…

We started with my mum having the Feta Cheese Salad which was light, refreshing and delicious! Then my other mum got the Tagliatelle Prawn and Mushroom with homemade sourdough bread slices which was very tasty, scrumptious, and uplifting.

Then I had the Penne Arrabiata with Sourdough Garlic Bread. Which if you truly want to test a restaurant, you go for the vegetarian or vegan. And my god, extravagant and fulfilling. It does have chili but it’s more of a seasoning than overpowering notes. And I swear I need to steal that sourdough garlic bread because it was sublime.

The sangria mocktail was lovely too. And a pint is as what you expected, crispy and nourishing.

Costa and the whole team were outstanding. And you can tell they love what they do with what they serve. And at one point, it was packed to the brim.

I wish I knew this...

We regreted going into the azzuri instead of pizza express. We opted for "authentic" italian only to be dissapointed. The only good thing about the azzuri is the decor and the fried squid starter.

I had the azzuri lasagna which was an utter shambles. It looked as though they microwaved a slice of lasagna from the morning and topped it off with lots of tomato puree to mask how old it was. The whole thing tasted like marinara sauce from subway.

Moving on to the seafood tagliatele; the prawns were very rubbery, the mussels was basically just empty shells whilst the only saving grace was the squid.

We didnt even bother to finish eating the mains. We would have been better of going tescos next door and buying two ready meals instead of the two dreadful mains. To compound the misery of our evening at the azzuri, my other half started to feel unwell 10 minutes after leaving the establishment.

Overall i think it should just stick to selling pizzas instead of serving dreadful food masked as authentic...

Really attractive and nice looking pizzeria on the high street. Friendly waiter who served us. Unfortunately though, it took an hour to get the pizza - despite the fact that there were only two other tables in the restaurant at the time! When the pizza finally arrived it was incredibly watery. Not like real Italian pizza. We told the waiter and he replaced it with an equally watery pizza. Clearly the chef doesn’t know how to make pizza with mozzarella.

Overall we were very disappointed!!... I then found out the owners of the restaurant also own the Italian Polish shop on the corner by the station (which is excellent by the way), however, this only fuelled my disappointment as they should know better.

With Pizza Express next door and Adome around the corner they really need to get their s*t together if they are going to compete.

Willing to give it another go, but please, guys, sort it out!!! It could be amazing. As a Streatham resident we want good...