As part of my friends Birthday celebrations we went to a nice modern Italian restaurant Zucca which is approximately 15 mins walk from London Bridge underground station.
Average price per person £20 (2 course) in September.
When you first enter the restaurant, what hits you first is the modern white decor, open kitchen plan and the relatively small size of the restaurant. Our waiter was fantastic - polite, attentive and willing to help us translate the Italian menu and regularly topped up our glasses with tap water.
There were about nine anti-pasta starters to choose from (~£4-5 each). None of us could decide what to order. Instead we ended up ordering all the starters on the menu and share between the eight of us.
The free complimentary bread arrived at the same time as the rest of the starters. The bread was nice. The breadsticks looked unique - long and twiny with bits of sea salt.
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| Selection of bread and bread sticks. Served with olive oil and salt on the side. |
"Zucca" in Italian translates to pumpkin in English. Their stable dish, "zucca fritte", is essentially deep fried tempura pumpkin. This dish was quite nice. The batter was slightly salty but very yummy otherwise.
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| Zucca Fritte |
The aubergine roast was nice, though not much flavour (although I must admit I didn't get to try any of this with the cheese). The texture of the aubergines were nice and soft. The carrots with this dish was a tad hard and could have done with a bit longer cooking.
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| Roasted aubergine and carrots topped with cheese. |
The cured fat of ham, is exactly what it the name states - the fat of ham sprinkled with sea salt.The waiter recommended it, it taste nice, but to me it was just fat with salt sprinked on it =/
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| Lardo: cured fat of Italian ham sprinkled with sea salt. Oven roasted garlic,onion and spring onion on the side. |
The ham selection was nice - again, as you would expect, just slices of ham and salami, but to me, not particularly special. A nice dish otherwise.
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| Selection of salami and San Daniele ham |
The smoked eel bruschetta was to me, one of the more different dishes. This was the first time I had smoked eel. The eel was slightly fishy (although others might not agree), but complimented the tangy taste of the capers and cabbage.
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| Smoked eel bruschetta with olive oil, capers and cabbage |
The raw seabass (seabass carpaccio), another dish I've never had. This dish was actually quite nice. Don't let 'raw seabass' put you off! It wasn't fishy at all and had a subttle salty taste. The chilli wasn't hot at all and the olive oil complimented it very well. If I had to order again, I would probably order this dish.
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| Seabass carpaccio: with olive oil and a non-spicey chilly |
The mushroom with cheese sauce was nice, although a bit normal. Add cheese onto anything and it taste good.
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| Mushrooms with a cheese sauce layered on a grilled slice of bread |
For mains, people ordered a number of pasta or anti-pasta dishes. I didn't get to try the sweet and sour rabbit - but it looked fantastic.
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| 'Sweet and sour' rabbit with capers and roasted pine nuts sitting on a slice of grilled bread |
I ordered the seafood stew, cacciucco. However, this looked more amazing than its taste. The muscles, clams and prawn had a nice natural sweetness to them. The filets of seabass however was a bit bland and maybe slightly over boiled in the sauce. The sauce itself was ok, if it was seasoned more and was more tomatoey - it would have been nicer. The small mishapen balls (~3 mm thick) of pasta in the dish, though unique (never had this type), was a little thick/starchy. I think a thin/fine pasta would compliment this dish much better - particularly as the sauce was a little bland for my palate.
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| Cacciucco: sea food stew consisting of a king prawn, mussles, clams and seabass, in a tomato base with fregula pasta |
I tried a little bit of the veal. From the little bit I tried - this dish was nice - though could do with more sauce? Although, I can't really comment since I didn't eat this dish entirely.
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| Veal with spinach and polenta |
The veal pasta. Didn't eat but looked good.
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| Pappardelle pasta with veal bolognese topped with ricotta |
The mushroom pasta. This dish was really nice! Very rich and cheesy and the mushrooms cooked to perfection. Though this dish would probably be a little rich if I had to eat the entire thing.
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| Tagliatelle with chanterelle mushrooms and cheese |
Overall, I had a good time. The service was good and the atmosphere of the restaurant was perfect - casual (but not too casual), dim lighting, warm busking friendly chit chat in the background. There was good choice in food, particularly with the anti-pasti collection (ideal for me as I'm not usually a huge fan of pasta). For the mains, there was a choice of: 3 seafood dishes, 3 meat dishes and 2 pasta dishes - to give you an idea of the selection. There are also specials of the day (not on the menu). The food itself was not too bad, but not exceptional - however the price (~£15 for seafood/meat main, £7-9 for pasta) was just right particularly with the food variety and excellent service. They seem to change their menu on a day to day basis, since they print the menu with the date, something good to know because it suggests that they use seasonal food.
Atmosphere: 8/10
Service: 8.5/10
Food: 7/10
Recommend? Yes if you love Italian food.
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