Del Italia

This review won the 'Favorite Review of the Week' award on www.grubhogs.com AND a cash prize with it on the 10th of Feb '09!!:))

Opp Juhu Beach, Juhu Tara Road, Mumbai 400-049.
Tel: 022-26184050/26184040

Ambience:
Using a rustic décor as a theme has allowed the people at Del Italia an excuse to use faded upholstery, badly laid wood flooring and barely a lick of pain on the walls. The seating is uncomfortable, to say the least. The lighting was a tad too dim as well.
What appalled me the most was that the glass fronted side of the restaurant, that hugs the corner and faces Juhu Beach, wasn’t sound-proofed at all, as I had assumed it would be! The result; blaring traffic noises and pedestrians looking in at you like you are a species in a zoo. A very distracting, and unpleasant experience. If that wasn’t enough, some crazy, tuneless music began blaring out of the speakers, suddenly in the middle of the meal, startling us.

Service:
The waiter attending our table looked spaced out. To top it he had a heavy vernacular accent which made it very difficult to understand what he spoke and the Sunday traffic cacophony outside added to the confusion. After much hand gesturing, pointing to the menu, straining our ears and trying to read lips we managed to place our order and hoped that’s what we would get on our table.
The staff is slow and seemed rather unenthusiastic, untrained and ill-informed.
And we were the 2nd of the only two tables that were occupied in the entire restaurant, on a Sunday night. The service was S.L.O.W.

What we ate;
Tetrazzini (Rs 310) The sauce was unnecessarily rich and heavy.
Sautéed Mushrooms (Rs 250) The caramelized mushrooms were delicious!
Woodfried Chicken (Rs 210) The chicken was dry, almost leathery and the sauce was insipid.
Pesto Gnocchi (Rs 310) Once again, the sauce was unnecessarily rich and heavy. The dish could pass off for a new fangled version of palak-paneer.
Mushroom and Onion Rotolo (Rs 280) Strictly okay! The pasta was overdone and dry.

For an Italian themed eatery, and the prices charged, their serving sizes are surprisingly small.

Dessert was;
Pannacotta with warm wild berries (Rs 150) Airy, creamy and just perfect! Btw there were exactly 4 ‘wild berries’
Mascarpone Torte ( Rs 150) Really good!
Chocolate and Grappa Torte (Rs 180) The best dessert! Gooey chocolate layers with a hint of coconut laced with a generous amount of grappa.

The desserts were the best part, and the saving grace, of this disastrous and overpriced meal.