La Trattoria da Maria Giuseppa

This is Italian food at its best — simple, fresh, with great flavours, friendly and honest service and small prices. Portions are massive, so we shared quite a few of the dishes and still came out more than satisfied. We started with skate, which was cooked perfectly, very tender in a spicy tomato sauce — don’t see how that could have been any better. Unfortunately the waitress misunderstood our order so the primo (Gnocchetti with Salsiccia and tomato sauce) showed up together with the secondo, a grilled sea bream with a contorno of aubergine with parmesan. No big deal though as we were sharing anyway. The fish was fresh and cooked just fine, and the pasta was very good but perhaps a little light on the meat. The aubergine was as good as it gets, just the right balance of spices, fruity tomato sauce and parmesan. We topped the meal off with a fried pastry stuffed with ricotta and topped with chocolate sauce — a typical Sardinian dessert. Too rich for me to be honest, but when in Rome… We finished the meal with a couple of digestives (very generously poured limoncino and mirto) and a coffee. For the whole meal together with a bottle of water and a half litre of Cannonau (red house wine) we were set back by less than 60 Euro — amazing value for money. I would probably have rated this with four stars given it was my first visit but what caused me to go for five straight away was that I was watching the big table next to ours: 9 Italians feasting on Antipasti Misti that just looked stunning and were very obviously enjoyed by everybody at the table, finished by a gorgeous seafood dish which I saw on the menu but had to be ordered for at least two — something I wanted to avoid so we could try a few more things. Unfortunately I have forgotten the name of the dish… They also had a number of specialties on the menu that are only available on pre-​order, including classic Sardinian dishes such as Zuppa Gallurese and Porcettu as well as dishes such as lobster. I wish this was a bit closer to our hotel which would increase the chances of coming back before we leave…