Il Piccolo: update 21/10/2012

This restaurant has been opened for a few months now and I was curious to go there again. You will find the original review here. I went there a bit late with my wife and my son so there were not so many costumers. The menu has changed a bit and I am disappointed not to see the limoncello dessert anymore... I will miss it.

My wife went for Spaghetti Bolognese and it was kind of a surprise that we were served some sort of tagliatelle instead. At least, it was not spaghetti. Otherwise, the sauce was not bad but we would have liked it with more tomato sauce (it was a bit dry). A bit more Parmesan cheese could have been better too but again the dish wasn't bad.

"Spaghetti" Bolognese, 155 NOK

I went for a pizza vegetariana and I liked it. The dough was good, the pizza was well cooked, the vegetables (mainly sliced eggplant/aubergine and diced artichoke) were full of taste. All in all, it was a success.

Pizza Vegetariana, 155 NOK

The service was better than last time we went there. The waiter was really warm and smiling. So all in all, a good experience despite a small deception about the pasta dish.

A new Italian in Stavanger: il Piccolo

NB: This is the original review of the restaurant, for a small update, have a look here.

Date of the meal: 07/07/2012
Number of people: 2 adults and 1 child (2 yo)
Order and price: 3-course menu 250 NOK
Address: Lyder Sagens gate 18

Il Piccolo ("the small one") is one of newest restaurant in Stavanger and Stavangourmet was happy to try it for you and review it.

Located in the city center but not on the harbour side (more towards Arkaden, Sony center, Wayne's coffee, ...), il Piccolo is the restaurant of the hotel Myhregaarden (quite new itself), but of course, you don't need to stay at the hotel to eat at the restaurant. For people curious about history, there was actually another Italian restaurant at the same place some years ago (called "Simone"). The place became a buffet restaurant after that but did not have much success and it is now "il Piccolo".

Their 3-course menu is quite attractive (250 nok for starter + pizza/pasta + dessert) so we decided to go for it. It was also good to provide you with many photos/dish reviews, as this place is quite new and no other reviews are available.

As the place is new and maybe because of summer holiday, the restaurant was quite empty. Despite this, we had to wait for a while to be served. I am not sure if this is because everything is relatively new or if the restaurant purposefully had few staff because they knew there would be few customers.

My wife went for the pasta salad (summer time!) and chose to have it with tuna (the choice was between chicken, ham, shrimps and tuna). It was nice but some pasta were not cooked enough.

I went for the minestrone soup. At the beginning I was a bit disappointed as the taste was close to boiled water plus vegetables but after a while, the taste became more homogeneous and the soup was good. So it was just a matter of waiting a bit and mixing the soup a bit more. There was a nice variety of vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant/aubergine, ...) and they were well cooked (not too much, not too little). Also, be aware that the soup is quite big, so should only be taken in a menu by those with a big appetite.

For the main, we had the choice between any pizza or a pasta dish from the menu (including risottos and calzone pizzas) which is really good. My wife went for the pizza capricciosa: tomato sauce, mozzarella, mushroom and cooked ham. My wife enjoyed it and thought it was quite good.

I went for the risotto with game (wild animals meat) and spinach. The dish was good but spicy. The rice was tasting a bit like saffron rice but harder (which I think is a good thing for a risotto). The game tasted a bit like chorizo, at least some of it. The sauce was good but spicy and the menu did not mention it.

Finally, the desserts: my wife ordered strawberry ice cream which was beautiful with small pieces of fruits and I went for a limoncello dessert as I really like the taste of lemon. It was really good and I recommend it to people who like lemon.

Otherwise, the service was good, the restaurant is beautiful (I like best the part with the kitchen which is the original part of the Simone restaurant, the other room having been added afterwards), and the menu is a good value for the price.

Let's wish good luck to this restaurant, hoping they get more customers and that they will handle it properly.

La piazza: nice italian restaurant next to the harbour

Date of the meal: 25/05/2012
Number of people: 2 adults and 1 child (2 yo)
Order: Capricciosa (from the children menu), 14. Farfalle al Salmone and 43. Calzone con Spinaci
Total price: 551 NOK (about 180 for a pizza or for a pasta meal, 75 for a child)

It has actually been about 5 years since I first went to "La Piazza". My Italian friends invited me there and if Italian people themselves go to an Italian restaurant, it is generally a good sign. Today, as someone voted on the poll for an Italian restaurant (the poll is about which restaurant to review next), I decided to go there to review it.

First of all, this restaurant is well placed, next to the harbor of Stavanger. For curious people, "la piazza", means the place, the square, as in "Leicester square". It fits perfectly with location of the restaurant, in a place with a small fountain. If you want to access to the restaurant with a stroller or a wheel chair, you will have to go from the back side (from the bar/night club "Checkpoint Charlie").

Then, I have to say that this restaurant is quite beautiful, having been renovated not so long ago. Also, the cutlery is nice, tables are covered with "real" tablecloth (not the paper or plastic ones).

Going to the food review, we were served some warm hand-made breads to make us wait which was a good surprise. Concerning the main dish, my wife ordered the Farfalle al Samone, which is pasta with Salmon (easy to guess). She liked the pasta and the sauce, and the dish was very filling. The only small negative point is that she found the salmon a bit salty, but it may be because Japanese people eat less salty food.

I went for the Calzone con Spinaci. Again, Spinaci is quite easy to understand, it is Spinach. The Calzone is a "closed" pizza that always reminds me of the drawing of the little prince novel by St Exupery. It was served with a tomato sauce and a gorgonzonla sauce. What I really liked was the dough and the gorgonzola sauce. Actually the gorgonzola sauce did not look nice but its taste was really good, maybe too strong taste, though, if you are not used to eating this kind of cheese. Also the pizza was perfectly cooked, not overcooked, not undercooked. The tomato sauce was fine but not exceptional.

The children menu proposes different kind of pasta or a pizza of your choice from the adult menu. This gives quite a lot of freedom if your child wants something in particular. We simply chose the "Capricciosa" pizza with ham and mushrooms (the name of the pizza is easy to guess, it means "capricious" but it is more difficult to guess what toppings this implies). The pizza was quite good and I appreciate it when restaurants have good quality meals for children.

To conclude, the service was good too and as the prices are not excessive, I think "La Piazza" is still a good restaurant, a "classic" in Stavanger.

The restaurant has a website but it is a bit outdated. For example, the opening hours on the website do not fit with the ones displayed on the menu. Here are the ones from the menu today (25/05/2012):
Monday-Friday    16:00 - 23:00
Saturday-Sunday  14:00 - 22:00
(kitchen closing half an hour before the restaurant closes)

That's it for this review. Hope this was useful. Don't hesitate to leave a comment, whether or not you agree with this review. Thanks!

Déjà vu

This restaurant, in the middle of a small shopping center had a bad start with me.

To begin with, I am generally not a big fan of restaurants in shopping centers. Lots of noise and generally not so good or cheap.

Then came the name. A French name for a restaurant which does not serve French food, nor has anything to do with France in general. Also, "déjà vu" is for things you have already seen somewhere. It generally gives you some comfort ("oh I know this place"-feeling) but to me, it sounds more like ("oh this place is nothing original, it's all already-seen, already-tasted place").

Finally the first few times I ate there I was not too impressed by the food and found it a bit expensive.

Well, things have changed and I must admit that I like this place. I often go there and just order some food on the go and we sometimes gather with other families with small children.

On the right a photo of their tapas. As you can see, there is a lot of different things, lots of colour and lots of taste. Everything taste quite good and the plate is well presented.

Actually, tapas is not what we order most. We generally go for the dish of the day. Also, the restaurant proposes a dish of the day. It is generally really good and changes often enough not to be bored with it (oven-baked chili chicken, Spanish style meatballs and more recently bacon pie with cream-sauce pasta).

It is also possible to pick up exactly what you want in the display of the restaurant. I generally use this option if there is something in particular that I want (cheese-filled peppers for example) but I think their tapas is the best quantity/price ratio.

Finally the restaurant has a menu but we generally either choose the dish of the day or their tapas.

Dishes are always served with pretty good bread and a very nice aioli (garlic mayonnaise), it is always nice to see that they don't fall in the easiness of serving just standard mayonnaise.

All in all, that makes Déjà vu a pretty good restaurant, clearly above the average of shopping center/mall restaurants. This restaurant is not the ideal place for a couple looking for a romantic dinner but it is a really good option for families with children.

PS: I am sorry I don't have more photos for this review, most photos were on my mobile phone but it accidentally fell on the floor and well... I lost the photos on it (quite a long story).

Torino Pizzeria

Eating out in Stavanger is generally expensive... What if I told you that you can eat a nice pizza for about 100 NOK in a newly-renovated place with nice and warm waiters ? Well, you would probably not believe me and yet this place exists, it is called Torino pizzeria and is close to the harbour.

We have been there the day they opened the restaurant (it was then called Oliven and you can still see that the theme of the restaurant is the olive) and have been there many times since then.

The first impression was that they had a beautiful kitchen. New, clean, with a stone oven for the pizzas... Good food, good service, good price.

A pizza for 1 person costs around 100 NOK and you can ask extra toppings for a small additional fee or big pizza for two persons. We can also see many people coming to fetch pizzas as it is possible to order them on the internet:

http://olivenristorante.no/side/takeaway

Below another pizza and their Calzone Torino. I was surprised at first by the association minced meat/calzone but I think it works out very well.

When it comes to pasta, they have quite good cannelloni that use the same dough as the pizzas. Quantity-wise this dish is a bit small but it comes with nice bread.

Torino pizzeria has also a menu for children: pasta, pizza... Our son liked both (ordered each at different occasions, not the same time) and I can say the quantity was more than enough for him (especially the pizza).

All in all, Torino Pizzeria is a good restaurant, very central in Stavanger, serving good food for small prices and deserves more customers.