Salusbury

Time Out says

Mon Jul 23 2012

The Salusbury ‘empire’ takes up four shopfronts, starting with a pub that leads into the dining room, followed by a wine shop and deli and ending with the ‘Food Store’: a casual sit-in deli/café with patio seating, especially popular for its pizza.

The dining room is a more sophisticated affair; mint-coloured walls with mirrors provide the backdrop for dark leather sofas under art-deco style lampshades. The menu is Italian and portions are big. Breton cider and Asahi beer are on the sizeable drinks list, along with plentiful Italian wines.

To start, you can select antipasti or a primi piatti, such as paccheri pasta, which arrived a little too al dente on a fruity and light tomato sauce with dollops of creamy ricotta. As for mains, spatchcock baby chicken alla diavola was spicy yet lacked any deeper flavour – but the accompanying spring greens were tasty. Grilled swordfish was served with peperonata that was more of a flavoursome tomato-based soup containing pieces of pepper and some capers, rather than the expected rustic pepper stew. An excellent tiramisu went some way to restoring our faith in the kitchen’s Italian credentials.