Ciao Bella

Ciao Bella is enormously popular - on a wet, miserable Tuesday evening even the barely-sheltered outside tables are abuzz, and the two stories indoors also fill up. There is an old school, traditional Italian hospitality vibe - it's the kind of place where you feel you should know the owner.



I arrive first, and they willingly bring out my tap water, as well as plates of olives and chunks of gutsy parmesan (but be careful - though unbidden, these will appear on the menu at £2.50 a pop). We dither over the lengthy menu and luckily decide to skip on the starters.

The main course platefuls of pasta are ginormous - each enough to feed two or even three pretty hungry people. The meatballs in spaghetti con polpette (£7.20) are as big as potatoes, while spaghetti all'aragosta (by the far the most expensive thing on the menu at £15.50) comes with what looks like an entire lobster. Of the four of us, only one comes anywhere near finishing, though not through dislike of the food. Even the signature tagliatelle "Ciao Bella" (£6.80) is surprisingly tasty despite mixing salmon with dolcelatte. The valpolicella (£14.50) is very quaffable lubricant for a pleasant, low key evening.

Everyone should have a good local Italian, and Ciao Bella fits the bill very well. It would work as well for a large group as a loved up couple. Plus, being Italian, they happily welcome children too. My loyalty, though, lies firmly with Venezia and its dolcelatte steaks.

Ciao Bella, 86-90 Lamb's Conduit St, WC1N 3LZ; Tel. 0207 2424119 www.ciaobellarestaurant.co.uk

Number Twelve

I was intrigued by Number Twelve -- it's not often that you get good reviews for hotel restaurants (unless they are really super-posh hotels).
This restaurant also happens to be based in the hotel where we stayed for a couple of nights many moons ago, while flat-hunting for our move to London. Now we are plotting our departure (for a few years) so a visit to the restaurant had a nice full circle feel to it.
The hotel has had a complete refit in the intervening years -- my memories are all of chintz and flowery bed spreads, but the photos on the website are all minimalist chic. The restaurant is modern too, but still feels like a hotel eaterie, its decor unmemorable except for the pretty flower stems etched into the flower-to-ceiling windows.
The place was empty, which didn't add to the atmosphere, but then it was 2.30pm on a Sunday. Luckily they sat us at a window overlooking the narrow Woburn Walk, with its pretty balconies, so we could people watch and utterly forget about the empty restaurant behind us. Plus we got two friendly waiting staff to ourselves, ensuring speedy service.



The home-made bread selection was amazing and, at £2, utterly bargainous. I could come here and just eat that with a glass of wine and consider it a pretty perfect repast. This included bread topped with manchengo-like cheese, a croissant-shaped roll speckled with walnuts, a focaccia-tyle cube studded with a cherry tomato .... and plenty of fragrant olive oil to dip it all in.



The 'small' chicory salad (£5.95) featured half a chicory head, its bitterness off-set by slices of pear and walnut, in a surprisingly light dressing Coston Basset stilton (they are big on provenance here), all topped with crispy fried parsley.



The juicy Donald Russell rib eye (£12) came with a gratin dauphinoise which managed to be utterly moreish despite being light on the cream and the cheese, beautifully cooked French green beans and a cute shot glass of the potent meat juices.

From the more than two dozen (!) wines available by the glass or a 375 ml carafe, I chose a glass of the cheapest -- a rich, pungent Temparanillo for a very reasonable £3.50. Generally I'd say the place was pretty good value (especially if you fill up on the bread!) -- their pre-theatre menu includes half a bottle of wine per person, and comes at a very reasonable £22.95 for two courses or £25.95 for three.
And they even give some very nice freebie cakes with the bill!



My biggest regret was that, as it was lunchtime, we were too full to try the huge cheese selection from La Fromagerie (£8.95). Guess we'll just have to come back!

PS While you are in the area, I can highly recommend a visit to the Wellcome Collection, where, among other things, you can see every possible design of forceps, a shrunken head and Napoleon's toothbrush. They do great 30 minute tours perfectly tailored to our (my) modern short attention spans.

Number Twelve, 12 Upper Woburn Place, WC1H 0HX; Tel. 0207 693 5425; Tube: Euston or Russell Square; www.numbertwelverestaurant.co.uk; closed Saturday lunchtime and Sunday evening.
There's a 25% off food deal on toptable at the moment, and on our bill there was also a voucher for 25% off food if you come back within a month.

Norfolk Arms

Who would've thought that a lick of cream-coloured paint could make such a big difference? The Brunswick centre has morphed, almost overnight, from a dump, to a shiny, trendy, desirable hotspot. The area around the centre also seems to be basking in new energy, with lots of lovely looking pubs. The Norfolk Arms has tables on the street for the sun-lovers who are brave enough to withstand the spring chills. Inside there is a cosy, European feel. The tables, chairs, floor and wall are all roughly coloured in creams and whites. The wine comes in glass tumblers and there are yummy-looking sausages hung behind the bar. We started with 1/2 pints of juicy prawns served with delightfully yellow home-made mayonnaise for dunking. The main course (chosen from the £10 set menu as part of a token-collect offer in the Times) was lentil and squid stew - a hearty bowl of puy lentils, blackened further with squid ink and sprinkled with bits of squid. My one complaint was that it would have tasted even better with the addition of some juicy chorizo. Tapas plates carried past us to other tables looked pretty good too and we needed a big dose of will power to resist ordering more wine (a very quaffable rose for £14) and a plate of charcuterie "for dessert". This is the sort of place you could easily linger in on lost afternoons.

Norfolk Arms, 28 Leigh Street, WC1H 9EP; www.norfolkarms.co.uk; Tube: Russell Square