Carluccios is an Italian chain of restaurants based mainly in London but with branches opening up in other cities. I have heard the food there is pretty good so myself and 3 friends went there yesterday for a meal. I had heard that Carluccios was expensive but a look at the menu suggested otherwise. For more info including an accessible PDF version of the menu visit the website at
Myself and the other 3 people I ate with have no sight or at least not enough to read the print menu at the table. In this situation good service is critical. It is simply not enough for some brain dead waiter who can’t even speak English to come to the table and expect people to point at the menu because he or she can’t even read it! I am very pleased to report that we had none of these problems. In fact all the staff we met were courteous and more than willing to help. The whole menu was read to us and, despite the restaurant being quite busy, time was taken to help us choose and queries were answered by staff who had some knowledge of what they were serving to us. This all helped to make it a pleasant evening. We did not have a guide dog with us but I have heard of people being let in to other branches of Carluccios with no problem so guide dogs should be let in without the need to bring your own personal lawyer to explain the legal position!
For starters I had home maid fish cakes which were not perhaps that Italian but they were very pleasant and served with a garlic mayo. I also got to try the garlic bread which was quite pleasant and very plentiful though perhaps slightly over done. I love my garlic bread to be intense and full on and this was acceptable but I have had better. Another person had the brochette and I am told that this was also good quality and tasty.
For mains I had the seafood linguini which contained mussels squid rings and prawns without shells and heads but with tails still attached. The portion of sea food was quite generous and the linguini came with a decent amount of garlic. I also got to try the chicken escallop which was quite bland but that is what was offered on the menu so fair enough. Another friend had the Penne with sausage sauce and liked it. The pasta with capers anchovy olives and garlic was also good so no complaints about main courses.
I had chocolate Fondant pudding for dessert. This had a nice soft centre but I would have liked it to be pure chocolate with maybe almonds on the outside. Having the almonds mixed in with the melted chocolate in the centre detracted slightly from the experience though the pudding was quite acceptable. 2 of my friends had the Italian ice cream and one had puff pastry with cream and strawberries inside and they both really liked it. My only other complaint was that Carluccios does not offer liqueur coffees. Instead we finished off with a hot chocolate which needed a good stir but which turned out to be dark and quite strong.
So on the whole while I can think of some improvements that could be made, the whole evening went very well and my criticisms of the garlic bread, the chocolate fondant and the lack of liqueur coffees are minor points that should not deter anyone from going out for a decent meal. I almost forgot to mention that we had a house bottle of red wine which for a house red was really very acceptable indeed with a good rounded slightly spicy flavour. One member of our group had apple juice and this seemed quite acceptable.
So we had 3 courses each, a bottle of wine, 2 of us had a beer and we all had a hot chocolate and the total bill came to £105 between 4 of us which I felt was a very reasonable price.
Over all then I give Carluccios 8 out of 10 and would recommend it.
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