Rossopomodoro is a chain restaurant with a difference. There may be more than one of them around the world, actually most are in Italy itself, but the cuisine on offer is of a notably higher class than one generally expects from a ‘chain’. Their menu is inspired by Neopolitan culinary traditions and as such is subtly different from the offerings one encounters at a typical Italian restaurant, though a variety of pizzas and pastas are still there, of course.
Our starters were grilled buffalo mozzarella with tomatoes and beef carpaccio. While the carpaccio was excellent, the mozzarella sadly didn’t live up to expectations. It’s hard to say why, since it was authentic Italian mozzarella, but the resulting dish just wasn’t very good for some reason. Odd, considering the simple ingredients.
We weren’t terribly adventurous when it came to ordering our main courses, partly because neither of us had ever been to Rossopomodoro, nor heard anything about it, and we wanted to give them a chance at impressing us with their version of the staples of Italian cooking. With that in mind, we decided on a lobster pasta and a four-cheese pizza. The pasta was exactly how pasta should be. The creamy sauce had all the right spices and the chefs were extremely generous with the lobster – many large chunks of which were floating in the sauce.
The pizza, on the other hand, was good but not great. It’s a dish that has become ubiquitous in almost all Western cuisine, so one expects a restaurant hailing from Napoli to have a pretty good grasp of the concept. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good pizza, but you can get better.
Dessert came in the form of gelato ice cream and chocolate cake. The gelato seemed suitably authentic, while the cake may have suffered a bit in comparison to some of the more mind-blowing experiences this restaurant critic has been through in the line of duty recently. That being said, it was a tasty cake, and probably half the price of some of the more outrageous offerings it was stacked up against in the mind of this reviewer.
Rossopomodoro is definitely a good Italian restaurant, especially if you like lobster pasta. It might be better to be a bit more adventurous than we were, though, and try some of the less commonplace offerings on their extensive menu.