Getting our just desserts

Newsroom 05/03/2012 | 09:50

Vecchio, 16 Strada Covaci, 031 430 9577

You join us as we await the dessert menu, stuffed from a salami-tastic antipasti for two, house salad, solid tomato soup, veal tenderloin and punchy seafood pasta. By this point, even the most gluttonous restaurant reviewer is flagging, and the house will have to produce something special.

And there it was: a dessert menu consisting entirely of pictures – not the photos beloved of cheaper eateries where the customers don’t speak the local language, but actual drawings, charming sketches of each option, with the name and price handwritten above. What a lovely touch.

This sort of detail is why I consider Vecchio a good restaurant with potential to be even better. It’s already popular, helped by a pleasant Italianate interior with murals and mosaics – think sun-washed Tuscan courtyard. The clientele is civilized – we were seated next to a party of about 20, which usually means noise, but they never got louder than a couple would have. Undesirable diners have been cannily deterred by the absence of a blaring plasma TV.

At 15 pages the main menu is too long to detail (probably explaining why it was not on display outside the restaurant). Plus it’s unnecessary to do so, because it’s standard Bucharest Italian in the expected categories and it’s on the website. There are some eye-catching options – truffles pop up a few times, as does turmeric.

The house salad (RON 26) – a fair dish on which to judge – piqued my interest, promising calamari with ginger, honey and berries, the latter turning out to be a sauce. The light fishiness of the calamari worked well with the sweetness, bulked out by a barrage of more common-or-garden veg and a judicious amount of garlic. It, like all the dishes, was generously portioned.

Particularly liberal was the antipasti (RON 42 for two people), three or four types of salami with wedges of parmesan, an army of black and green olives served on a bed of ruccola. Nothing fancy, but it did the job. Likewise the tomato soup (RON 14), a thick rustic dish drizzled with pesto and with two cheese-on-toast islands afloat.

Seafood linguine (RON 29) did not scrimp on the fish, with mussels, prawns and their pals served in an oily, white wine sauce emboldened by abundant garlic. It was good, and good value. Veal tenderloin (RON 56) was bloody to spec, steeped in a dense, creamy cognac sauce and bedecked by green peppercorns.

Desserts (RON 14-16) are the usual suspects; our chocolate cake was a solid slab on a biscuit base decorated with sweet sauces. House wine starts at a reasonable RON 16 for a glass and RON 40 for a bottle.

Service was well intentioned if a little erratic – our mains were on the table about a minute after the starters were cleared, when some respite for digestion and chat would’ve been nice, and an extra chair supplied by the manager for our overspill was promptly whisked away by another waiter. But the manager is evidently very professional and I think such blips – which stem from trying too hard rather than complacency – will be ironed out.

Debbie Stowe

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