Restaurant Reviews and Food Musings

Restaurant

Luigi’s
15 Tavistock Street
London

Phone:- 020-7240 1795

Website www.luigisofcoventgarden.com

Overview

Eva and I were near Covent Garden, the other evening, and decided to try out Luigi’s. Luigi’s is a privately owned Italian restaurant, that was established over 37 years ago.

Luigi’s is nearby the main theatres and nightlife of London’s West End.

Ambience

We had not booked, and the restaurant was very busy. However, the staff managed to find us a good table in the main dining room.

Luigi’s has a main dining room, and 3 individual private dining rooms; it can therefore cater for larger groups, other then the normal 4-6 people.

The restaurant was cheerful, comfortable and pleasantly decorated. The ceiling was white with light oak beams, interspersed with a large number of fans to circulate the air.

The walls were painted green and decorated with photos of personalities from the world of cinema, opera and theatre both and present. The tables were laid with white linen cloths and napkins.

Our welcome was warm, and the atmosphere lively.

Menu

The menu contained a good selection of Italian dishes ranging from the familiar eg carbonara, smoked salmon, Bresaola, Gnocchi, Carpaccio and rack of lamb to the more exotic eg quails’ eggs in a pastry boat and pheasant ravioli in a wild mushroom sauce.

Pizza lovers need not bother coming here; no pizzas!

Service

The staff were friendly, efficient and prompt.

I would also like to thank them for seeking us out in the restaurant, and returning Eva’s wallet; she had left this in the rest room, and it had been handed over to the staff by another diner. We were grateful for their initiative and honesty.

Food

I started with the Spaghetti Carbonara, this was a good quality version of the classic dish. The spaghetti was cooked just right, not too soft not too hard; and the sauce was cheesy, flavoursome and rich but not thick and claggy. I was very impressed with their version of this dish.

I chose the Bistecca Barolo for my main course. This was a sirloin steak served with a Barolo and mushroom sauce.

Now I have to say, that I was not that impressed with their version of this dish. The steak was tender and cooked rare, as requested. However, the sauce, although it looked dark red and inviting, was incredibly bitter and overpowering. I would charitably suggest that too much, of a poor quality, Barolo had been used to the detriment of the other ingredients. Were I uncharitable, I might suggest that the Barolo used by the chef had gone sour.

The dish came with vegetables and rosemary potatoes, the latter were excellent by the way.

Eva started with the avocado Gorgonzola, this was superb. The avocado creamy and smooth, topped with an incredibly rich Gorgonzola sauce. She was delighted with her choice.

Unfortunately Eva suffered the same disappointment as myself, with regard to her choice of main course. She chose the ravioli with pheasant.

This dish was presented in a very appealing manner on the plate. It consisted of five large bright yellow pillows of pasta, stuffed with pheasant, which were surrounded by a rich dark mushroom sauce. However, in our view, the sauce massively overpowered the taste of the pheasant and ravioli; and frankly, was not that pleasant.

The meal, which included a bottle of Chardonnay and liqueurs, came to £102 including service.

Overall Opinion

In our opinion, the quality of the main dishes that we ate let the restaurant down. We doubt that we will be returning.