Rosita's, Southsea
Rosita's, an Italian restaurant of long standing in Southsea, underwent a change a while back from cramped and cosy to rather startlingly smart.
Who would have guessed that the old place had so much space and the ability to become so sophisticated?
The ceilings are now hung with ritzy chandeliers and the red walls feature modern art.
There's enough foliage to convince yourself you've had a good stroll in the park before sitting down and being handed a menu by one of the best waitresses – from Romania – around.
It's enough to make you want to jet to Bucharest to see if such quality service and charm is the norm.
The menu – 'authentic Italian' – reads as partly that and partly all over the place, the spelling demonstrating a lack of Italiano lingo fluency.And I don't know many authentic Italian restaurants serving fillet steak with stilton and port sauce, peppered golden delicious pork or pizza with roast duck, mozzarella and hoisin sauce.
Apparently, the outfit is owned by the people behind Tin Tin, a Chinese restaurant, which might explain the latter but not the other two dishes.
There's prawn cocktail, stuffed mushrooms, toasted goat's cheese and scallops with chorizo in a white wine garlic butter sauce for starters followed by steaks and chips and a whole slew of homemade stonebaked pizzas, pasta dishes including Bolognese and Carbonara and risotti, one of them with added Parma ham, mushrooms and courgettes.
Prices range from 6.95 for the scallops to 15.95 for the fillet steak, with pizzas, pasta and rice dishes around the 8 to 10 mark.
My starter, that scallop dish, had an unbilled cream sauce, not the advertised white wine and garlic butter. The roeless scallops were rather solid and small, but the chorizo was the star of the show.
If only the next dish, saltimbocca pollo with Parma ham, sage and white wine sauce, had its main ingredient of chicken breast as well-sourced as the chorizo, it might have been a winner.
Sadly, the chicken couldn't be disguised by the ham and certainly not another cream sauce, again unbilled. There was no sage either, this simple dish turned into something unauthentic.
But the roast potatoes were ace, the large vegetable selection crunchy. Desserts were simply ice cream choices.
Bona fide Italian to me means well-sourced ingredients simply cooked, not smothered in cream. Rosita's might benefit from a menu makeover and someone to source better produce and wine – the house red was poor.
Sometimes revamping the look of a place just isn't enough. My bill came to just under 20.
Carol is a chef, former restaurateur and editor of Savour, the Guild of Food Writers magazine
Rosita's, 140 Elm Grove, Southsea PO5 1LR
Open: Seven days a week from 5.30pm to 10.30pm
Food: ***
Service: *****
Atmosphere: ****
Disabled access: Fine with space between tables
How to get there: Elm Grove is in the centre of Southsea and accessed by either Victoria Road South to the east or the Kings Road to the west. Parking is on-street.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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