The crazy week didn’t show any signs of slowing down come the weekend. We had a family dinner planned at Cafe Maurano in St James’ on Saturday evening, with cocktails first at Coya, a peruvian basement bar and restaurant on Picadilly. Both venues had been chosen by Madge’s mum, and we’d not been to either so were looking forward to it.
The Cosmo at Coya was lovely, if a bit sweeter than I prefer, but it took forever for the drinks to come, and when they did our round arrived without two of them. The bar is very lively, with a good atmosphere, but you probably need to order two drinks at a time, especially as the first one usually goes down quite quickly!
From Coya we headed to Cafe Maurano. I’ve been to the main Maurano restaurant in Mayfair before for lunch, so was really happy to know we were going to try this less formal sister restaurant.
It didn’t disapoint. The dining room has a lovely long bar along one side of the first half of the room, with chairs at the bar (fave thing!). The noise level and decor was perfect – informally classy – enough to know you are somewhere nice, without feeling stuffy or formal.
The menu starts with a selection of nibbles and runs to 5 courses if you want it to. I tried some of the anchovies as a nibble (lovely) but saved myself for the 3-course spectacular, starting with the dish of the night, which was succulent sweet roasted peppers with homemade ricotta. I followed this with squid ink tagliolini, crab and radicchio – which was also awesome. The main course was a chicken milanese with salad – which was lovely, though I couldn’t finish it, which was a shame. I was waaaay too stuffed to even consider a dessert.
The restaurant was very, very good and I would definitely go back. It was also really good value, not too expensive at all, and the staff were great – attentive without being overbearing. The ideal place for a family celebration – in our case a 60th Birthday.
Like an utter idiot I didn’t take any pictures of the whole evening – so you’ll have to imagine how lovely it was 🙂
