Paolo

[Bloated]

Paolo is an Italian restaurant on Percy Street (off Tottenham Court Road). My guess judging by eg the posts on this forum its competitors are Sardo, Passione and Giardinetto- but I haven't tried any of these yet.

I had taglioni (more or less spaghetti) with lightly cooked courgette strips and black truffle- the sauce was pure butter I think- simple but very nice

ravioli with ricotta and aubergine sheets of pasta stuck together and then the circles of ravioli cut out- 'pure' tomato sauce to accompany - again simple and very nice

pasta twists with sausages was highly rated by one of my fellow diners but none of us tried the meat dishes

chocolate (almond?) cake with 'non-green' pistachio ice cream

Bread was ciabatta rolls (doubt homemade) served with dipping oil and vinegar.

Service was excellent

Seating- cramped small square tables.

Restaurant was half-empty. (sat night)

£17.50 for three courses but another course would have pushed it up to £20.50. Pasta course taken as first course was still the same size as if taken as a main.

[Miss J]

Yes, Paolo's a decent little restaurant. I had the courgette/black truffle pasta as well, so I'm glad to see I'm not the only person seduced by its buttery charms.

My observations match yours pretty much exactly, but the only other thing I noticed was that certain dishes seemed excessively lemony - not is a nice zippy way, but in an actively mouth-puckering one. Maybe its my own fault for choosing tuna carpaccio and rocket to start (with lots and lots of lemony sourness), and then following my pasta with the lemon tart (more of a super-tart lemon cheesecake), but even a sour-fan like me found it a little much near the end. Of course at those prices, I'm not going to hold it against them.

[circeplum]

Paolo is an Italian restaurant on Percy Street (off Tottenham Court Road). My guess judging by eg the posts on this forum its competitors are Sardo, Passione and Giardinetto- but I haven't tried any of these yet.

don't bother with giardinetto - had a truly average meal there and it's rather a sad, dingy little basement.

(reviewers have raved about it, though. oh right, it was giles coren ... )

[horton]

I've only heard bad things about Giardinetto recently. As for Paolo's Kikujiro did a seriously long review back in August and thought it good. I am ashamed as I still haven't been!

[Thomas Secor]

Friends of mine went to Giardinettos on Friday and said it was not only not good value, but downright bad. Overcooked pasta, overcooked and tasteless dover sole, uninteresting starters. Of course the restaurant itself is nothing much to look at, worsened by being in a basement that seemed to have fluorescent like lighting the one time I went down to take a look. In addition, it is not cheap.

In their view, they could have gotten a meal at Passione for very much the same price (although probably a meal of two courses instead of three), which would have been infinitely better.

Went to Paolo's on Friday night. It was packet at 9:30 and had trouble find seating for us as we hadnt reserved. I made this point in Kikujiro's post, that Fitzrovia restaurants are far more crowded Wed, Thurs and Fri. then on Saturday as much of their business is from the media types and PRistas that work in the area.

And I loved the lemon tart. They are never lemony enough for me, and I thought it was great. Didnt have the tuna carpaccio though.

[dallardice]

About half-full last night when we sat down at 10pm.

The owner told us the menu would be changing to an autumn/winter menu later this week, and the prices would be going up a pound or two and moving to a la carte pricing. As long as it works out at only a pound or two, that's great - £20.50 is stunning value for four courses.

Apparently the chef used to be at the Green Olive, I didn't catch his name.

[Serangeli]

Hello, fresh to London and new to egullet, I find this site very useful, and had many hints about new places to try. I also like to give my first contribution!

Went to Paolo on Tuesday, after several recommendations. Didn’t find the value set meals anymore (3 course for 17.50), and was initially disappointed, but decided to try anyway.

I was completely surprised by the all experience. The high standard of the food, the nice, cozy atmosphere and professional service.

I had a starter of Fish ravioli, all of different colors and with that kind of delicious taste that you can still recall after few days. My main course was the Duck with Limoncello, very nicely cooked, tender, juicy meat.

My companion had the monkfish carpaccio with grapefruit, fresh, delicate taste. Her main course was the wild seabass, again, surprisingly good. We finished with a chocolate and almond cake (very chocolaty and moist- superb). Bread was home-made

Towards the end of the dinner, the manager comes to ask us about our meal. I took advantage of this to ask him about what happened to their set menus. His reply was that they are now proposing a more gastronomical menu, with more selected ingredients than before and they intend to keep it along this line. They also had granite table tops, now covered by white linen.

Food come to £55 for 2 + a nice bottle of Cialla Bianco (£30) -service 12.5% - still good value for money for cooking of this standard.

I didn't find the atmosphere dull, as mentioned in earlier posts. Nice people -nice time and above all, beautiful food- heartily recommended

My next visit will be Locanda – I will report back

[Miss J]

Thanks Serangeli. Looking forward to your Locanda report.

[Lucrezia]

Had many memorable meals there. I think they deserve to be doing much better though…they are probably still too young and need be better known from the public. At the moment Paolo is like one of London’s best kept secrets