Hey Prezzo, just what Tring needed
With Tring missing a Pizza Express, Ask or any other Italian-chain type restaurant until now, Prezzo provides the town with one of those easy favourites.
With a similar feel and open interior decor to The Akeman restaurant just around the corner, people have questioned how successful the chain restaurant Prezzo might be.
However, being slightly smaller than the bar-come-restaurant popular with all ages down the road, Prezzo offers a more intimate and quieter atmosphere thanks to the hidden kitchen, which for some might also takes away the buzz.
The staff are friendly and welcoming and ensure you have everything you need at all times. Drinks cames quickly as did marinated olives to accompany (which were a touch soft) but after the manager's recommendation of garlic bread with caramelised onions, the pre-appetizers were redeemed since the soft pizza style bread tasted fresh, delicious and most definitely more-ish so much so I had to remind myself to stop so to have enough room for further meals.
For the starter course, tiger prawns cooked in a tomato sauce with garlic, chilli and spinach served with focaccia bread, and also crabcakes served with a garlic mayonnaise were served. The crabcakes were faultless, thick, relatively stodgy and flavoursome enough that the garlic mayo was barely needed.
However, the prawn dish felt more like a main course (although not in size) but missing a serving of pasta. Although the tomato and chilli were great partners and it was just-the-right level of spicy, it felt more of a pasta sauce, although the foccaccia bread did provide some good full on Italian fun mopping the plate clean at the end.
The much attentive staff were ready to bring out the main meals sooner than ready - but were very happy to wait when asked. Unlike some other restaurants though, the manager was wonderful at staying on standby and ensuring we were at no point forgotten even though taking a breather. Also ensuring our drinks were never empty.
For the main meal, we chose Nicoise salad with the expected ingredients of yellowfin tuna, white anchovies, free range egg, marinated olives, capers, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and focaccia croutons in the Italian house dressing. The interesting thing with a Nicoise is that despite always being the same ingredients, every restaurant does it differently.
Although this substantial portion was 'what it says on the tin' and well priced at 8.95, it would be improved by being a tuna steak rather than from a can.
However - the penne con salmone pasta dish with oak-roasted salmon, broccoli and fresh chillies in a red pesto and cream sauce at 10.50 could have been more expensive and totally worth it. Not too creamy, not too chilli with plenty of salmon and broccoli mixed in with pasta cooked just right. A definite choice if I was visiting the restaurant second time around.
Now the restaurant came into its forte for dessert. A vanilla panacotta accompanied with plenty of raspberry coulis, which I find some restaurants fail to serve enough of, and a honeycomb smash cheesecake, it is impossible to have decided which one was best.
Not only was it hard to choose dessert in the first place, a fight for who could eat the fastest then took place as we scrabbled to get as much of each as possible. The cheesecake was rich but not too sickly while the pannacotta was light and refreshing after a heavy meal.
Definitely likely to become a longstanding restaurant on Tring's High Street since when you know what to expect, you can't go wrong. A perfect choice for an easy yet middle class meal.
Leave your thoughts below.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Aylesbury
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: -0 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: West
