Jamie Oliver seems EVERYWHERE at the moment. His latest venture is a chain of “affordable” Italians. It started with an opening in Oxford, followed quickly by openings in Bath, Kingston, Brighton, Canary Wharf, and Guildford, Cardiff opens tomorrow and there are four more to follow in 2010: Cambridge, Reading, Leeds and Liverpool. The restaurants seem to be opening up quicker than Starbucks!

I met Nate, Caro little baby Gaspar and Caro’s Mum at their home in Earlsfield. Caro had hired a car for the day so that we could all go together to visit the Kingston Branch. It was nice to be able to go out with them all as a whole family! In Jamie’s Italian Jamie is trying to evoke the feel of rustic, simple, good genuine Italian food but alongside this he wanted to create an environment that was relaxed, “neighbourly”, accessible and affordable. As a result you won’t find any posh attitudes at Jamie’s Italian and you’re welcome to stay and relax as long as you want. You can’t book ahead, its first come first serve, though if you’re in a group of 8 or bigger they can attempt to reserve a space for you. We thought there might be queues out the door so we aimed for getting there rather early. Despite traffic we arrived at the perfect time and were seated pretty much straight away.

Inside the restaurants is very attractive and very welcoming. Great lighting especially in the room we were in with the sun roof. What I immediately loved about the restaurant, other than our extremely cute French waiter (heh heh), was the fact that it felt so warm inside. It’s a very family friendly restaurant and there was great buzz and atmosphere. What I loved second was the menu – no pizza in sight! Don’t get me wrong I love a good pizza but I love a good pasta or other Italian type dish more.

We started by sharing a meat antipasti (seasonal cured meat, italian cheeses, buffalo mozzarella, pecorino with amazing chilli jam, and pickles, curly green chillies, green and black olives) and a gorgeous selection of bread (focaccia, ciabatta, sourdough country bread, grissini sticks and ‘snappy music bread’ with lemon and rosemary gremolata) served with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The antipasti is presented on a wood plank served atop two giant tins of tomato. Nice touch of the rustic! Oh, we also couldn’t resist the “Post Truffle Chips” – chips served with truffle oil and parmesan. Really lovely, and loved the parmesan on top, though I couldn’t taste the truffle – I never can!

For mains everyone but me went for pasta. Its hardly Italian but I couldn’t resist the South Coast Fritto Misto – a fried selection of fresh seafood served with a healthy dose of Italian tartare sauce. I’ve read actually that it’s the pasta you should focus on when coming to Jamie’s – next time! The pasta was a pretty big hit – Nate, Caro and Caro’s Mum only had good things to say. On the other hand my fried fish dish was almost too much for me portion-wise. I could barely finish the combination of sardines, calamari, prawn and fish. It was good however had a bit of a sameness in each bit. Too much of one flavour for me.

However, someone was clearly still hungry 😉 :

I really wasn’t to have any dessert as I didn’t think I could fit any more in but Nate convinced me I had to (okay – I’ll be honest I didn’t take much convincing – heh heh.) Lemon ricotta cheesecake – yes please! The portion was pretty generous, though the spoon was even bigger!

Price-tag – Caro’s mum treated me, how nice!, so I don’t know what the total bill was but from what I saw on the menu I did expect prices to be a little cheaper. Though prices were about what you’d pay at Strada and a just a touch more than what you’d pay at Pizza Express. Still perfectly reasonable prices though I did expect the prices to be sub-London prices for some reason.

Overall I have to say that we had a really lovely experience today. Part of it I think was the fact our waiter was French and enjoyed talking to Caro and her Mum in French so he seemed extra friendly. The atmosphere was wonderful and there was never any pressure to rush with our meal. Food was pretty much as expected – nothing spectacular but good and hearty.