The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Madness leads to gladness
I‘m a man who believes in giving second chances,
whether it be to the wife who ironed two creases into my trousers, the child who dropped my iPhone down the toilet or the restaurant which gave me a bad meal.
It was due to such levels of forgiveness - and the fact I can’t resist a bargain dinner - that I recently loaded the family ( including her of the erratic pressing and him of the phone in the pan) into the car and headed over to Hampton Vale.
Mattoni was our destination. An Italian restaurant bearing the name of the Italian word for ‘ bricks’ and sitting on the site of the old brickyards
It is an eaterie which on our only previous visit had been a serious source of disappointment but the poor food and terrible service we experienced almost two years ago are a thing of the past.
A change of ownership in that time has clearly had the desired effect and some forward- thinking promotions are pulling in punters.
The initiative that grabbed our attention is the ‘ Mattoni Madness’ which offers any pizza or pasta dish from the main menu for £ 5.95 ( Sunday to Thursday, excluding seafood options). Judging by the trade on the night of our midweek visit, we weren’t the only ones to have cottoned on.
Throw in a couple of starters for the adults and three three- course kids’ meals for £ 4.95 a pop and we would later depart with change out of £ 40.
You could easily spend more than that on pub grub, so the chance of some genuine Italian cuisine should not be sniffed at. And let’s face it, you can’t beat a nice Italian.
I began with the Fungi Funghetto ( button mushrooms sautéed in freshly made garlic butter sauce) for £ 4.95.
It might have only been £ 1 cheaper than the main course that would follow, but it was divine. The mushrooms melted in the mouth, the garlic butter was beautiful and the salad dressing ( a blend of sweet onion and balsamic syrup, I’m reliably informed) was something else.
The good lady chomped her way through a Gamberetti in Salsa Rosa ( translation: prawn cocktail, price: £ 4.95) to start and was also mightily impressed. It was quite possibly the biggest prawn cocktail ever seen. Quantity and quality was her verdict.
She was also rather chuffed with her Regina pizza when it arrived. Hamand mushroom is always a safe option in the pizza world but it was a fine choice and very pleasing to see the generous portion size continue. There is nothing worse than a sparsely- topped pizza in my book.
I decided to go down the pasta road and opted for one of my all- time Italian favourites, Cannelloni. It arrived bubbling from the oven and was superb. Crammed with beef below a sea of mozzarella. Top notch indeed.
And so onto the younger ones we go . . .
I often get the feeling that children are tolerated rather than desired in restaurants of a certain class. There was none of that at Mattoni where our three offspring under the age of six were made more than welcome. In fact the food was served to suit them
A kids’ menu complete with activities kept them occupied during the time when boredom can set in between ordering and eating.
The food for the little ones is terrific too. A portion of garlic bread fingers with cheese to keep them going while tackling their colouring tasks followed by main course portions that some adults would have struggled to put away.
Whether it be Spaghetti Bolognese or chicken nuggets, it went down well. The same can be said for the ice cream that followed as two stuffed adults gave dessert a swerve.
We’ll cross that bridge next time because ( puts on Arnie voice) we’ll be back . . .