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La Toscana - Division

In Britain, there's Italian restaurants and there's Italian restaurants, and there's Italian restaurants.

In most Italian restuarants you get crap "British Italian Restaurant" food such as pasta with stodgy, tepid, bland sauces and ice cream with a wafer for dessert. In these restaurants it's best to order pizza.
In some Italian restaurants, they serve nice "British Italian Resturant" food, like pasta with rich tomato and olive sauces, or great pizza. In these places it is best to choose whatever you fancy, as it'll probably be nice.
In a few Italian restaurants, they serve food that tastes like the kind of thing you are served in Italy. Simple, delicious, unpretensious cooking. In these places, it is best to avoid pizza, not because it will be bad, but because you can get pizza whenever you want, and so why not try a delicious authentic main course?

La Toscana on Devonshire Street is somewhere between the last two. It's a tiny place; it was the Mash House a few years back, then became the Pasta Bar Express, the sister place to the Pasta Bar in Sharrowvale Road. Now it's a cosy little Italian. It's small, but they easily coped with our table of 9 on Saturday night. Despite the name, the menu didn't seem to be particularly Tuscan, more generic Italian. And it was simply, delicious, unpretensious cooking, if not always necessarily 100% authentic.

Service was OK and very friendly. There were two waiters, a stereotypical Italian waiter "Your tagliatelli and Pancetta, my friend. Bon Appotito!" and a stereotypical Yorkshire waiter "Here's you pasta and bacon. Enjoy your meal."

So, there's a lot of crap Italian restaurants in Sheffield, there's a lot of mediocraty, and there's suddenly a lot of chain Italian restaurants too. There's Nonna's which has really nice food and definately falls in the "Italian" Italian resturant category, but it's pricey and full of wankers.

So, if you want a nice Italian meal in a cosy retaurant without breaking the bank (our bill was just £25 a head for 3 three courses including service and wine) then I heartily recommend La Toscana. I'm bothering to write a review, because it's so small that you will probably miss it, and it could probably do with the word of mouth. They have earnt it.

Monday, April 14, 2008 8:33 PM