La Dolce Vita

La Dolce Vita , the annual Italian festival at the Business Design Centre in Islington is a celebration of all things Italian. Which off course includes Food and Wine.

The ticket price on the door is £16.00, but really this is only an event you would only do if you got free tickets. The layout was not very effective, all the busy stands (the ones giving away food and drink samples) were generally in areas where there was barely space for one row of people – a recipe for instant traffic jams.

The cookery displays in the Teatro del Gusto looked interesting.   I was certainly looking forward to attending the one Theo Randall was scheduled to do. The seating was free (accept for the front row, so seemed like an option.  No chance! – the small area was packed even before Theo’s session. The people from the earlier session were not moving, paying customers even had to have chairs brought in.

The Wine Academy was another wash out for us. Despite directions, we  just could not find where the £5.00 tickets were being sold in time to join the planned session.

No plans to attend next years event.

 

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Theo Randall – at the InterContinental Park Lane

I discovered Theo Randalls cooking a few years back at the  Taste of London – Food Festival, so I was looking forward to something quite special when I visited his restaurant at the InterContinental Hotel, especially since the restaurant has 3 AA Rosettes.

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We went for “the cheap option”, i.e., a pre-theatre deal.  Thinking that might be an easy way to check out the Restaurant.

I really do not understand it when quality restaurants let themselves down at this stage.  My view is that if they make the cheap deal appetising, I am going to want to go back and try more of the menu.

Theo Randalls pre theatre menu was really basic, the pasta was not very exciting and actually a bit messy.

In fact the excitement was just outside the window next to our table, the Paparazzi were there covering some award ceremony in the Ballroom. On the plus side this  meant we got good service, as the staff kept popping over to have a look 😉

Marks out of 10

Food 4

Service 6

Ambience 5

 

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