Restaurants

How brave is this? A seafood restaurant that is perfectly content to be a seafood restaurant without the decorative fishing nets or token meat and poultry options for carnivores. Olivomare’s stark minimalist monochrome fish-patterned decor is as single-minded as the menu. On the night we dined at this sibling to fellow Sardinians Olivo and Olivetto, it was a solely (sorry) seafood affair. Not just seafood, either, but impeccably fresh, intelligently cooked seafood. House-made monkfish ravioli with tomato and bottarga (dried mullet roe) were silky and uplifting, while calamari fritti actually tasted of sweet calamares and not deep-fried cardboard. We also loved sea-sweet, chargrilled sea bass cooked in a salt crust, and a crisp bream fillet sympathetically accompanied by a colourful summery salad of fregola (a couscous-like Sardinian grain). Desserts, including sebada cheese fritters and good sorbetti and gelati are, thankfully, seafood-free but just as much a celebration of freshness. Even the (Italian) waiters are fresh, in a good way.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2009