Fabrizio’s, Highgate

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again but little, independent restaurants like Fabrizio’s are the best thing about living in London. This place is at the Archway end of Highgate Hill and it’s a tiny Italian restaurant which, to be honest, doesn’t look like much from the outside. Once you get in however, it’s really cute; the staff are friendly and the food is great and really reasonably priced. We spent hours in there eating, drinking and chatting (my Italian friend would approve, she doesn’t think a meal counts as a meal unless it lasts 3 hours) and even though we were probably making a bit of a nuisance of ourselves by the end we never felt more than completely welcome.

The menu is extensive, with plenty of fish and vegetarian options and when we sat down they brought out the specials board and propped it on the next-door table for us to consider…                                               

As soon as I saw the Burratina on there I had to have it. If you’ve never had this, just imagine a super, super creamy mozzarella and you’re about halfway there. Phwoar! This came with balsamic glaze and chargrilled veg which offset the creamy cheese perfectly. The others had avocado & mozzarella salad (can’t go wrong with that, avocado is food of the Gods after all) and lasagne. They’ll do pasta as a starter, though it’s a big portion so make sure you’re hungry (I’m always hungry).                                    

For main courses the boys went with some specials; the sea bream and the tuna. Now, the tuna was ordered medium-rare but was definitely cooked well done which was a little disappointing, but the sea bream was beautiful! Cooked in a foil duck (Swan?) with potatoes and veg…                                      

How cool is that?? It was flakey and buttery and delicious. My other friend didn’t actually fancy anything on the menu (she had a craving for pasta with chicken) but when she told the waitress that she got the chef to rustle something up especially, which was brilliant! They probably wouldn’t do that if it was busy, but I thought it was such a nice thing to do.

I wanted pizza so had one with goats cheese and parma ham. This was £9.50, and just LOOK at all that delicious ham! Bargain! The pizza itself was perfect as well, thin base, puffy crust and loads of topping.   Smashing.

What we ate:

Avocado and mozzarella salad

Burratina (*swoon*)

Lasagne

Parma ham & goats cheese pizza

Sea bream

‘Tuna of the day’

Improvised chicken pasta

What we drank:

A couple of bottles of a really nice Pinot Grigio – not usually my favourite but this slipped down a treat

Free shots of lemoncello – like being on holiday!

Would we go again?

Absolutely 🙂