The Italian Touch
In Cardiff, the Italian story continues with well-established Cardiff restaurateur, Baback Arabestani, opening Bellini’s in Park Place (www.bellinisitaliano.com), where the dated Scrum Bar closed down some time ago. The restaurant has been elegantly decorated with an open kitchen (although one of the walls strikes me as being a bit of a fire risk – go there to see what I mean!) and, again, with tables outside and full length glass doors opening onto the pavement, this should be a good place for summer lunch. The menu is a very typically extensive Italian menu; at one of the opening lunches, I was very impressed by a slightly unusual pasta dish, Penne Spezzatino, which is cooked with slices of very tender fillet steak- £10.95 as a main course or £8.95 on the Express Lunch menu, which has a good range of dishes from £5.95.
As always with Italian restaurants the welcome and atmosphere are warm but you certainly won’t see raffia-wrapped Chianti bottles here!
Richard Fisher
