Kitchen Italia, Covent Garden, London

If I could give this place 0 stars I would! I’ve never written a bad review on a restaurant and never normally even complain in a restaurant! But I just have to stress how AWFUL this place is. Genuinely the WORST meal I have ever had! Shockingly bad service and the food was even worse!!

Went on a Saturday night, was just 2 of us and we got sat on a table of 8. After that we were ignored for about 30 minutes before we managed to get someone to take a drinks order (asked a few waitresses who said they would come back and never did…) Took 20 minutes after that to get a food order taken!

We ordered starters (garlic focaccia with cheese, breaded mozzarella) and mains (goats cheese ravioli, lasagne) as we had a 241 tastecard. Garlic focaccia turned up 2 minutes later (no cheese) so we sent that back, they just returned the same bread, now cold, with a bit of cheese sprinkled on top! Mozzarella turned up 10 minutes later, ok but fairly un-inspiring, sauce to accompany tasted of nothing.

To my surprise my main, goats cheese ravioli, turned up about 2 minutes after the last starter when we were still eating. This is where it got really bad, the goats cheese ravioli was the most awful thing I have ever tasted. It was beyond in-edible. It honestly tasted like vomit and I am not exaggerating. It had cold/almost frozen roasted veg on top. It was truly awful. My boyfriend will eat anything and he took one mouthful and pushed the rest away it was SO bad.

The second main meal turned up 15 minutes after mine. We thought you cant possibly do lasagne badly! How wrong we were! It was a huge dish with a tiny portion of dried up lasagne in the middle! We were both starving though so gave it a shot. The top was rock solid and the middle tasted bizarre. There was barely any meat in it, just a strange tasting paste, and the rest was just sheets of pasta. We managed half because we were so hungry! It was edible but way below average for a fairly standard pasta dish! Not 1 person asked us if our meal was ok, even though 1 plate was clearly sat on the edge of the table untouched and we didnt eat all the lasagne.

When the waitress eventually cleared the plates we had to tell her how bad it was. She was not very apologetic but said she would tell the chef. We were asked if we wanted desserts, definitely not, so they bought over the bill automatically! The waitress started saying as a gesture of good will they had taken off the goats cheese pasta. Hardly a gesture of good will given that it was in-edible and we had 241 with the tastecard so 1 of the meals would of been taken off anyway! We mentioned this and said something else should be taken off, either the lasagne or drinks. But they said that couldnt be done as we had eaten some of the lasagne!

We couldnt be bothered to argue so we paid and left. It was just awful. From start to finish the worst meal I’ve ever had. NEVER EVER GO TO KITCHEN ITALIA!!

I'm of the opinion that Kitchen Italia is the only place in Covent Garden that serves up quality food at decent prices. It's located somewhat unobtrusively at the basement of 41 Earlham Street, so it doesn't seem to get much foot traffic (at least not the two times I've passed by), which is a shame, because there're loads of canteen-style and booth-style seating, friendly staff and great food at fantastic prices to be found here.

My favourites were easily the deep-fried breadsticks served with salsa (probably not healthy given that they're deep-fried, but, man, they are yummy) and the hot crispy chocolate ravioli with bacio ice cream dessert, which is positively scrumptious.

Had 2 starters, 2 mains, 2 deserts + 2 beers for £42 which I thought was really good value for money for Covent Garden.

The main complaint was the order in which the food arrived. One main and one starter followed after a long gap, with the other starter and finally the last main dish.

Starters:
- Tomato & Buffalo Mozzarella pizza OK, too much tomato sauce for the thin crust. The crust should have been thicker, or there should have been less sauce. Went well with the fresh basil from the pot in the middle of the table!

- Superfood Salad
Superb... The brocolli was steamed to just the way I like it (not too soft). The other vegetables like asparagus and peas were just right as well, and the dressing was excellent.

Mains:
- Both vegetarian stuffed pasta from the specials menu (stuffed with aubergine and cheese).
Good, maybe could have done with an extra piece per portion. Although each stuffed pasta piece is quite filling. the portions just looked a bit on the small side. Other than that, they tasted great. Also it was a shame my main course arrived before the other main course or the starter!

Desserts:
- Hot Crispy Chocolate Ravioli with Bacio ice cream. Delicious! The hot dark chocolate in the ravioli went perfectly with the ice cream.

- Vanilla Ice-Cream with Cookies
Nothing wrong with the cookie (quite moist) or the vanilla ice cream but compared to the other dessert...meh...

“Nowadays the power of the blogger is everything”, says Jamie Barber, ex lawyer turned restauranteur, Kitchen Italia – a new chain of Italian cheap eateries being his latest venture. “How many followers do you have on Twitter?”

In a world where marketing is dead, each business has to be unique and “remarkable”. Seth Goldin, author of ‘The Purple Cow,’ tells us how “everything that has to be invented has been invented…What was once amazing is now common. Worse than common. It’s boring.”

Through our love and passion for food and sharing, we have created Fernandez & Leluu – a supper club with a small but growing following. It is self-made, self-taught, self-backed, self-inspired, self this, self that and self other.

It seems like what we are doing is very ‘purple cow’ and that our opinions really count even if it comes to chain restaurants or any restaurants for that matter that have millions backed into it.

Has the time changed to make the big fat cat turn to the stray puppy – even if it is dressing up as a purple cow?

Upon arrival, the other three word-of-mouth-ers and I were offered some delicious Bellinis – (with peach puree) they were very very good! Jamie claims that they only use fresh produce in their cocktails and try to keep everything seasonal – I heard you would not find a strawberry daiquiri there in January.

“It’s all about word-of-mouth,” Jamie continues, ”we have got to give the people what they want, and we have got to put as much love into our food as possible.”

Not his first venture, he opened Shumi – a Japanese/ Italian fusion, with Roger Moore’s son, Jamie has opened Kitchen Italia in Earlham Street, Covent Garden (next to the great Donmar Theatre in what used to be the Bunker Bar). No doubt encouraged by the success of his first branch in Westfield Shopping Centre.

With its big sharing wooden benches and promotional deals as paper placemats it looks like a Japanese noodle bar, bento eat such as Satsuma.

I think it’s the perfect place to have a bite of lunch/ dinner while shopping – with their menus based on pasta –didn’t pasta originate from China’s noodles? For a quick bowl of pasta ranging from £6.95 to £9.95 – it’s surely in tune with today’s economic climate - aiming to be good value-for-money.

“Fine dining is dead,” Jamie claims, “even if you can afford it, it is seen as ‘vulgar’ these days.” And who knows better than Jamie, who honestly and interestingly went on to tell us about the failures of Shumi – how having A-List celebrities on your opening night does nothing to provide any good word-of-mouth, in fact just “pissed off the food critics”. Going back to basics and serving “street food” and not complicating menus seems to be the lessons he learned.

We commenced with the pasta making course (PR exercise) where we met the lovely Head Chef, Lee Burcell, (Jamie found Lee by going around testing pomodoro sauces).

Lee is from Yorkshire and has traveled throughout Italy, learning chef techniques and the secrets about Italian food. Jamie managed to drop quite a few famous celebrities Lee has cooked for.

Lee said that I was very good at folding my Cappelletti (con Anatra), it made me blush! He seems very passionate and proud about his love for Italian food, telling us that from the age of 5, Italian boys are cooking with their grandmothers – being tested on making the perfect tomato sauce. (such a good idea – I will do that). But I didn’t ask him how long he has been mastering his sauces.

The spicy tomato dip that comes with the doughy house-made hot crispy bread sticks were incredible. I would go there just to moor those like a savage. Kitchen Italia is simple and unpretentious and Jamie clearly wants the place to be about the love of great Italian food he has eaten on is jaunts.

I had been back with a friend and we stayed for hours on a Saturday night catching up and chatting, drinking wine from a lovely carafe (very authentic). We shared a table with a couple who said hello to us – which was really nice and unusual. I think the social ideas of supper clubs are catching on.

Our waitress was very charming although it was a bit like she was trying to ask us if we wanted fries with everything (but different breads instead, although we ordered their amazing bread sticks). I love the way they have different olive oils on the table, and a pot of basil, parmesan and salt & pepper – again very oriental. It just means you can participate to seasoning your own dish.

It’s a far cry from a typical Italian restaurant but it’s not meant to be one. Jamie has moved that era forward a bit- “it’s a Strada but like Wagamama but a much warmer feel,” my friend, Anja says, “I like it, the pasta is not amazing but I have only found a couple of places in my life that does pasta – amazing, the way I love it. I think it’s the hardest thing to do – making something simple like a Penne Arrabiata.” As Lee rightfully said, the Italians are doing it since the age of 5.

(Rice Balls - Lee cleverly used Japanese breadcrumbs to make it be much lighter than Sicilian ones-very scrumptious)

I couldn’t help but wonder why it is not perfect. I’d imagine, Lee would cook me the most wonderful Vongole if I were lucky enough. What happens to the kitchen when the head chef is not making my pasta dish, the owner is afar mulling over his accounts. I assume there are set standards for how their pasta sauces are meant to be but will it ever be the best sauces if its not made by the person who created the recipe?

Is it because these chain of restaurants cater for people who eat pasta for lunch when out shopping at Primark or for those who love real Italian food? Jamie says that in Westfield, most plates get sent back because its al dente; the black truffle pasta sent back because it was black; the tiger prawns sauce because its too spicy.

As a business, would you be forced into middle-of-the-road blandness just to please the masses? “Or is being safe too risky?” (Seth Goldin).

I don’t mind a bit of Strada or Kitchen Italia every now and again – definitely good value for money for those pre pay-days. Will be back for the bread sticks, tiramisu and hopefully, Vongole from Lee but I wouldn't order pasta there and be niave enough to hope it would be excellent.

LELUU

In the space of a few months, a year or two ago, an idea was born.

First of all, I went to a great restaurant in Toronto that did fresh pasta. It was cheap, cheerful, massively busy, and I thought "now there's a concept that would work in London."

Shortly afterwards, I got invited to a pasta making event which showed just how quickly you can knock up a batch of fresh dough. It also showed just how much pasta you can make with a few eggs and a bag of flour. Suddenly the restaurant idea took on new legs: with those sorts of margins, it must be feasible. All I had to do then was win the Lottery. And hope that someone else didn't think of the idea first.

So damn you, Jamie Barber, damn you to hell. The rather talented Mr B, the man behind the rather nice Hush, has just opened his second branch of Kitchen Italia and yep, it's pretty much what I'd envisaged for my place: buzzy atmosphere, shared tables in that Wagamama / Busaba style, good value food, little carafes of decent and sensibly priced wine...

Critics will no doubt find things to niggle at, not least Kitchen Italia's very obvious "concept" approach. Like Wagamama's, this is the sort of design / build that could be rolled out now to every major city centre, and probably will be. The thing is, if they opened another 30 tomorrow, every branch would survive because it gives the people what they want. Very decent food, at decent prices.

Bread sticks are dusted with polenta and served warm. Risotto balls - oh how I love risotto balls - are genius: deeply satisfying and, one suspects, a thoroughly efficient way of using up the previous day's leftovers. And the pasta is excellent. Because it's fresh, it takes no time to cook, which puts Kitchen Italia properly into the fast food bracket. That also means they can spend a bit of time on the sauces, and the Salsiccia Piccante - slow-cooked spicy sausage with fennel breadcrumbs - that smothered my Mafaldine was excellent. Portions were so generous that I couldn't finish it, and it's not often I say that.

Vegetable side dishes were excellent - crisp, fresh, big flavours - and the table "decoration" includes a selection of good flavoured olive oils and a fresh basil plant so you can customise your meal. Nice touch.

Grudgingly, then, I have to say that Jamie's a better man to do this than I would have been. And just to show there are no hard feelings, I'll be popping back on a very regular basis.