Far from Paradise on a visit to well known Paradiso
Group dining over the festivities can be a risky affair with restaurants juggling multiple groups of merry diners. We struggled to find a restaurant on a Friday before Christmas that could accommodate our group of eight and, despite booking in a peak period at short notice, Paradiso, a long-standing Italian in Newcastle’s dining scene, assured us they could squeeze us in.
Although it’s a well-established name which has been in the city for decades, it’s easy to miss the restaurant tucked down a cobbled side street off Pilgrim Street. Don’t let the inconspicuous entrance fool you: it’s a Tardis inside, spanning three floors of cafe, bar and restaurant, as well as an outdoor terrace. It’s got the atmosphere side of things cracked with a friendly bustle of diners and bare brick walls and industrialwindows creating an informal, relaxing atmosphere.
The service, however, wasn’t so relaxing. Although friendly, front of house was slow. Maybe they didn’t have enough serving staff to cover the restaurant at capacity, but even drinks seemed to be a struggle with one of our group waiting 40 minutes just for a beer.
We were seated on the first floor where you can see into the open place kitchen which was, unsurprisingly, incredibly busy.
We swerved the Christmas specials for the regular a la carte menu, which offers an impressive range of Italian dishes with no less than five choices of garlic bread, 13 pizzas, pastas, risottos, grills and fish, as well as a more imaginative choice than most for vegetarian diners.
To start I chose the antipasto freddo (£12.95 to share). Portion-size was just right: there was plenty of slivers of Parma ham and salami circling a salad of tomato and mozzarella and it tasted good, however, presentation looked a little hurried.
We waited close to an hour and a half after sitting down for our mains and my choice of pizza Pugliese: mozzarella cheese and tomato with Parma ham, rocket and Parmesan shavings (£9.95) wasn’t up to scratch. The base, although hand-stretched, was incredibly dry and a sparse cheese topping only added to the moistureless meal. Again, presentation was hurried with an uneven spread of toppings. Our waiter did his best to keep the wine flowing, but seemed to be spinning way too many plates for one person, and we had to remind him a cou- ple of times of our orders. My friend had a similar complaint with their pizza and one of the ingredients on his seafood version was missing, but, by that point, we were so hungry we couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of sending them back. Disappointing for an Italian restaurant to have such poor pizza. Staff did apologise for the slow service as we paid for our meal, but no discount was offered. Perhaps Paradiso is a Newcastle favourite best experienced off peak.