Grande total

Restaurant review: Simon Jenkins at Casa Mia Grande, Chapel Allerton, Leeds.

The second link in Francesco and Marta Mazzella’s Casa Mia chain, Grande opened in 1999, adding the opportunity for fine Italian dining 100 yards from their original and well-established outlet, which continues to succeed as a winning combination of coffee and cake shop, pizza and pasta restaurant, delicatessen and wine bar.

While there was always some overlap in what they offered, Grande concentrated on seafood, fresh fish and meat – and a wine list to match just about anything you could find anywhere across the city.

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Its success was immediate, its popularity underlined by its rapid expansion through the annexation of neighbouring shop units. The takeover of a piano store completed their appropriation of the entire parade. Its re-opening as a champagne bar was much a reflection of the company’s confidence as of Chapel Allerton’s attraction for newly-moneyed professionals with a capacity for conspicuous consumption.

A decade on, my last couple of visits have left the slight impression that the Mazzellas are just starting to rest on their laurels. On a night when our three courses cost a shade under £100, the food is good, but never really hits the heights, the service is at times ponderous on a night when the dining room is never more than a quarter full.

It looks great though, its attractive conservatory thrusting out towards Harrogate Road, offering anyone passing a glimpse of its warmly-lit interior, crisp white linen table cloths, glinting cutlery and gleaming glass.

When you walk in, and are greeted warmly beside the seductive, well-stocked, horseshoe-shaped bar, you get the impression that Grande is something special, a little cut above.

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The decor is simple, effective, under-stated – deep blues and purples and wood panelling. Enticing fridges stacked with salads and fish separate the dining area from the busy open kitchen behind. Smartly-dressed waiters in black and white flit around the tiled floor, making themselves look useful, even if occasionally they seem determined to ignore my attempts to catch their eye.

The menu underlines Grande’s distinction from most of the city’s Italian restaurants, even its renowned rivals such as Flying Pizza, Salvo’s and Bibi’s, by not serving pizza.

The choice of starters covers most of the well-tried bases – soup, seafood, pate, bruschetta, salad, vegetables – augmented by a blackboard specials menu that is almost as long.

From this I choose the chunky, big-tasting disc of black pudding (£6.95), which, when presented with a fried egg, a rasher of crispy bacon and lots of baked cherry tomatoes is rather like a posh Full English.

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Again from the specials list, my partner goes for the smoked salmon (£6.95), two rolls of soft pink salmon, stuffed with creamy, chivey cheese and served with prawns and rich pea puree on a bed of leaves. This is too small, in contrast to my own big breakfast sized portion.

I’d also take exception to the fact that these starters are both served on rather impractical narrow rectangular slates. I’m not normally a messy eater, but shamefully, a few chunks of my black pudding wind up on the linen.

We’re already making inroads into the wine, a 2003 Montepulciano D’Abruzzo Colline Teramane packed with the cherry and plum flavours typical of the quality reds from this mountainous region on Italy’s Adriatic coast.

It’s not cheap at £22.95, but makes a fine accompaniment to the main courses which follow.

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The slates are dispensed with at this point and the main courses are served on attractive white oval plates. My partner’s sizeable rib-eye steak (£16.95) is nicely pink in the middle and buried under a generous smothering of smoky, woody mushrooms, wrapped in a herby, creamy sauce and served with some thin-cut crispy chips.

Better still is my juicy swordfish steak (£13.95), spiced up Napoli-style with a sauce of capers, sliced black olives and cream and more cherry tomatoes than are strictly necessary. Perhaps they’re on offer at the Co-op next door.

Between them they have amounted to a significant assault on the senses and I’m rather hoping for a tart Italian sorbet – lemon or raspberry perhaps – to slice through those layers of aftertaste and give me my palate back again.

But Casa Mia Grande doesn’t offer a sorbet which is either a significant shortcoming or a reflection on my own poor proletarian tastes, arguably both.

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So I choose baked Alaska (£6.45), given a bitter twist with slices of orange and the surprise of black cherries hidden deep inside. It’s served rather dramatically, flambéed in Cointreau.

“You might want to blow it out now,” the waiter suggests helpfully, as its crispy, meringue-like coating blackens rapidly in the flames.

My partner chooses the less ostentatious, cocoa-dusted tiramisu (£4.75), while revitalising coffees ready us for the journey home.

The bill for £96 includes a 10 per cent service charge, which I pay, despite feeling the service has been the slight weak point of our evening out.

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It needs to be addressed. In a suburb where it’s perfectly possible to eat quite lavishly for roughly two thirds of this price, Casa Mia Grande cannot afford to take its success for granted.

Casa Mia Grande, 33-37 Harrogate Road, Chapel Allerton, Leeds, LS7 3PD. Tel: 0113 239 2555,email: [email protected], web: www.casamiaonline.com. Open 6-10.30pm Tue-Thur, 5.30-11pm Fri-Sat, noon-9.30pm Sun. Closed Mon. Ramp access. On-street parking plus limited access to nearby supermarket car park.