On Saturday night we decided to catch some pre-comedy food at Stazione. A bit of a tourist trap, yes, but surely it can't be that bad. How wrong we were.
The decor is the best feature of this restaurant, very stylish in a tasteful dark purple with stacks of panettone piled by the counter. We had plenty of time to admire as the staff were milling about aimlessly and with no particular desire to seat us.
The menu is an unchallenging list of 8 or so starters with the same amount of choice in pasta and mains, a promising start given the frequent ability of Italian restaurants to manage mediocrity through 100 dishes.
The food
My husband (henceforth known as the trophy husband TH, at his request) had beef carpaccio with black truffles and rocket for a starter which could have been good if a) there had been truffles included (no, we didn't get a discount) and b) it had been fresh, it had definitely come from a packet. A bit steep at £8.50 for two slices of beef and a handful of rocket. I opted for calamari which had the slightly watery and mushy consistency suggesting it had been bought frozen and even worse, it tasted no better than supermarket calamari.
I hesitate to say that the mains were marginally better, maybe the fantastic valpolicella (£9 for a half bottle) had improved our mood by the time it arrived. I opted for pesto stuffed gnocchi (definitely pre bought) and a white wine and cream sauce (tasted like Heinz cream of mushroom soup) whilst TH had tuscan lentils and sausages with the bizarre addition of prunes - a hearty, tasty dish generous on the sausage and the serving size, and a reasonable £10.95. Had we found the one dish to rescue this restaurant? Sadly, no. Only a couple of hours later TH was missing the second half of the comedy gig due to sudden illness.
We struggled to find any redeeming qualities of this restaurant, the food was overpriced and awful, the service wasn't great and they accept only cash as payment. Save yourself the disappointment and cook up this at home instead http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/squidinkpastamussels_84847 note: many italian delis sell dried squid ink pasta, I bought mine from Olio E Farina http://www.olioefarina.com/
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