Restaurant Review - Teatro

It has been some time since I posted a review of a restaurant trip so some catching up to do.

After the theatre last week five of us descended on Teatro in Shaftesbury Avenue at 6pm to sample the place.  Needless to say it was not exceptionally busy at the time so was relatively quiet and for once I was able to hear most of the conversation around the table as there was no annoying background music.  It is a fairly plain room, largely decorated in white and with a selection of "red" paintings on one wall. The staff (in common with other London restaurants) were clothed entirely in black.

Given our companions we stuck with the fixed price menu (£18.00) for three courses as it offered a reasonable choice.

The wine list was consulted and I have to admit proved a little bit of a challenge as the prices were conspicuously unattractive (at least to my pocket).  Anyway the apparently unlisted house winces came at £12.50 a bottle - both white and red - and both proved drinkable as the four drinkers (and I was driving, so not much) saw off the bottle of each.

My starter was a Veloute of wild mushrooms and this was a large bowl of tasty soup which I enjoyed immensely.  My wife had a salad nicoise which had a rather nice piece of seared tuna resting on the salad.

My main course was a lamb shank, elsewhere round the table was salmon resting on some lentils.  The lamb was well cooked, detached very easily from the bone and was well presented.  Sadly it lacked a little in taste and was therefore a touch disappointing.  Bland I suppose would be the description.

I ended with the "English" cheese choice - a piece of stilton.  The main cheese tray for the a la carte menu was sighted and looked appealing. Those having the sweet spoke well of it.

Our total bill was £154.31 and the make up of it is as follows:
        Food            90.00
        Wine            25.00
        Coffee/water    15.50
        Cover charge     7.50
        12.5% service   16.31  (marked optional)

Now you can interpret that as you wish - it is about £30 each, the a la carte menu would have added up to quite a bit more.  Given the location in Central London the prices are bound to be high.  I was a touch disappointed with the lamb but may have been unlucky.  I feel it could be a little expensive but feel that our choices were effective and we received reasonable value.