Lifestyle: Restaurant Review – San Carlo, Birmingham
THE advantage of taking someone with you when you review a restaurant you are familiar with is that you can happily order your favourite dishes whilst your companion does the experimenting.
Such was the case when I visited central Birmingham’s San Carlo restaurant one lunchtime recently.
I barely had to look at the menu before ordering my calamari followed by monkfish in a tomato, white wine and cream sauce while my dining companion was getting increasingly flustered trying to choose from an extensive menu whilst at the same time being advised of daily specials by our affable host Doriano Fisotti.
San Carlo is something of a Birmingham institution of course. The Italian eatery’s walls are festooned with photos of celebrities eating there and it always seems to be busy, even on a Monday lunchtime.
The crowd seems to be a mixture of ladies who lunch, captains of industry, private equity types and the well to do but San Carlo doesn’t just attract them because it’s a place to be seen. It’s sometimes overlooked in favour of everything that surrounds it – the hustle and bustle of the waiting staff and the buzzy ambience – but the food here is seriously good.
A word on the waiting staff. San Carlo waiters have a reputation for being, shall we say, brusque. Now I’ve never found this to be the case – although plenty of others have mentioned it to me.
Certainly on my latest visit the waiting staff were affability itself but then again they did know we were there to do a review!
Anyway, onto the food. My calamari fritti starter (£6.95) was as good as ever. A pile of succulent fish, lightly battered is hard to beat in my opinion but what I love about the dish here is that they add small pieces of green chilli.
Now the Italians aren’t known for their love of heat (as in spice) in their cooking but the combination here works perfectly, the chilli combining so well with the squid and giving it extra zing (technical term).
After much deliberation my co-diner plumped for the manzo pepato (£7.95) as her starter. This is fillet of beef with a peppercorn crust, served with mustard mayo and salad. She said the beef, sliced thin and served cold, was a much lighter plate than she’d anticipated (a good thing I gathered) and the crust really added something. Beef Wellington for dieters I reckoned.
For my main course I stuck to my guns and ordered my favourite San Carlo dish of monkfish cooked in a sauce served with tomatoes, white wine and cream (£17.95). I chose accompaniments of saute potatoes and petit pois with onions and bacon.
I’ve had this dish many times and it never fails to impress. The sauce is finely balanced which is good because too much cream and I’m all over the place. The meaty fish works so well with the sauce and the potatoes that I’m not sure I would ever order anything else here (an ornate conservativism which probably explains why a career in restaurant reviewing continues to evade me).
In fact the dish is so good that my companion, who has a real phobia about the combination of fish and tomato-based sauces, braved it out and tried a mouthful and declared it delicious.
Meanwhile, she has been convinced to try a new dish from the specials board which was tuna steak in a yellow pepper sauce served on a bed of broccoli.
She chose sides of asparagus and truffle mash.
Big solid steaks of tuna with an intense pepper sauce pleased her enormously. although it was the truffle mash which nearly stole the show. It was so delicious we asked for the recipe (yes you guessed, mashed potatoes and truffle oil).
For dessert we went for a cicchetti platter (cicchetti is a bit like Italian tapas) where small portions of a number of deserts were presented together. The standout for me was that wobbly wonder panna cotta although the cheesecake ran it close.
We washed it down with a glass of superbly sweet muscat wine from Piedmont which had distinctive notes of orange.
All in all it was a great lunch.
Interestingly, the best reviews of San Carlo tend to be from national food writers. Perhaps we take it for granted because it’s on our doorstep.
It would be foolish to do so because the food is of the highest quality.
San Carlo isn’t the place to go for a quick bite in my opinion. But if you believe eating and drinking is one of life’s great pleasures and should be savoured then this is the place for you (and me).
San Carlo
Address: 4 Temple Street, Birmingham, B2 5BN
Tel: 0121 6330251
