il meglio Ristorante di Venezia  

Most recently, I'd taken some friends to IL MEGLIO for lunch, coz I just absolutely love the food here! Some things to definitely have is their herb focaccia, garlic and truffles! The service is awesome, they are a wonderful bunch, always willing to cater to you needs --we're vegetarian and we've never had trouble their. Especially if you're a foodie, leave it to their chef and you get something wonderful and tantalizing every time. IF you're not a foodie, prefer something more like a simple pizza or pasta.. let them know they do that too!

Love their pizza crust, the crunch, the freshness of their pasta!

Hmmm writing all this is making me hungry... not something you can do all the time, it's a lil pricey too --but surely, you feel satisfied!

Came to TST for a quick lunch during an August weekday and remembered no one's really eaten lunch at Knutsford before. Why not give it a try? Arrived early and took a quick browse of Tutto Bene's menu, then compared it to next door's Il Meglio's Menu - the latter serves similar food but is priced much cheaper, it also has slightly more customers....! Since both these restaurants are run by the same dining group (not Kingparrot), my only conclusion is that they lack a bit of lunch business, therefore strategically sacrifice 1 shop and 谷 the other shop's business via the 'pricing' differences! Watching too much 麥堤爽!

ORDERED A BEEF TENDERLOIN LUNCH SET. Around $120 and includes Bread, Appetiser, Soup, Main, Dessert and Tea.
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BREAD - Baguetts. Bread was ok but the butter had a funny, mouldy taste to it, probably due to condensation.
ESCARGOTS WITH HERBS - This was a baked escargot dish with a herbal, tomato based sauce with a bit of cheese on top and spinach on the side. It was more pleasant than I'd have imagined - also bigger than I thought.
OXTAIL BORSCHT SOUP - I took just a few sips of this, but I don't like eating too much during lunch so left it on the table while my companions finished theirs. The staff took it away - then a minute later, was instructed to come back and ask me if there was anything wrong with the soup's flavour and they would appreciate my feedback to improve, and also offered to swap to an alternative soup for me. HOW GOOD IS THE SERVICE AND TRAINING HERE! In fact, the soup was quite tasty and full of beefy and slightly spicy flavours - but I was really happy to get such levels of professional service automatically!
GRILLED EYE FILLET - This was ordered Rare as I like this particular muscle cooked rare rather than medium-rare/medium. My piece was smaller than my friend's slightly though. It was done perfectly, it even had a good Chargrilling aroma and taste. It had a strong meat flavour as well - but obviously not as good as a Dry Aged Tenderloin which has a very nutty meat flavour. The meat texture had us asking if it was very 'slightly' chemically treated but we couldn't decide since if it had been, its very subtle and nowhere near as much as the baking-soda or papaya seed tenderised Chinese Steakhouse equivalents. Came with a bit of potatoes, frisee salad, thyme and a fitting garlicky/onion like sauce.
DESSERT: VANILLA PANNA COTTA WITH SESAME SAUCE - This seemed a bit like a Cantonese + Italian fusion dessert. I was quite full at this stage and this jiggly dessert was more fun to play with than for eating. The next table got a different dessert with their meals though - strange!
LEMON TEA - This was ok-good, nothing to complain about!
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OVERALL - Quite a Value-For-Money lunch and punches above its weight, considering having a similar steak set at 金鳳, 花園 or 波斯頓 is nearly the same price but at much inferior qualities and with less food in total! This meal was slightly Asianised I guess but wasn't overly so like the above 3. (Another friend having the similar priced Rib-eye was also surprised at how good the quality of this steak is vs the low $120 or so paid for the whole set meal.)

I give it a mid '3' - mid '4'.

Passed by and spotted this italian rest., tempted by its menu while there were not much choices around, so simply set our foot in it.

Even though only me and my friend, we were offered a 4-seat table. First served by a basket of baguette, grissini, warmly toasted, crusty with tender inside, served nicely with the tomato spread accompanied and much better was the heated garlic clove (one can simply spoon it out and mesh it on the bread), not even bother asking if balsamic vinegar or olive oil is available,

The antipasto platter was a delight, with thick sliced and rolled tuna piece, 5 types of ham each with its distinct taste, freshly accompanied by the caesar salad, well this's not authentic and yet they just match anyway, not to forget the tuna roll, smoked tuna mesh rolled with a slice of wheaty bread was a surprise, and a slice of liver pattie brought another surprise with a slight but strong favour,

We ordered a pasta and a risotto, While the plates were served, I asked to place them in the middle as we were gonna to share, But gosh, the two dishes were already been divided and was served in a single plate for each of us, how nicely he is, isn't he?

We should have tasted the risotto first, coz it's subtle cheesy taste would easily be masked by the strong tomato flavour of the pasta. The tomato sauced seafood linguine was indeed al dente with giant fresh prawns, scallops, mussles and clams, taste enlightened by herbs on top. Still I don't deny the well cooked risotto, cheesy and creamly with a slight flavour of sea urchin, one minus point would be the rice was a bit dry, bit more sauce would complete the dish well.

Last came the dessert, we got chocolate mousse with vanilla ice cream and expresso on top, the taste was good but itself was a challege to taste, it's way too snobbery one's got to hold it at one end while trying to spoon it out on the other...

Quite pricely frankly speaking, juz coz I know there's another serving nice italian dishes at a much cheaper price and yet it still offers an amazing dining experience.

Went there on Valentine's day but we didn't take the set dinner. We ordered scallop and beef carpaccio as appetizer. The scallop was very delicious, its fresh and the sauce matches the scallop nicely. However, the beef carpaccio was disappointing. The thinly sliced beef must have been pre-cut and placed on the plate long time ago, then the chef must have just put the salad and cheese on it to serve. You can't even pick up a full slice of beef at all. The chef didn't even put any olive oil on it!!

For the main, we had truffle and prawn risotto, excellent taste and food for value. I ordered a pan fry veal in butter sauce. Absolutely disappointed, that is definitely not veal, it's just a rib eye fillet thinly sliced but charging the price of veal.

The wine menu was surely not comprehensive enough, too. I guess this restaurant has some tasty food, but you really need to try your luck. Service is not bad though, even on a busy day like Valentine's day. If you are planning to dine in at Il Meglio, order seafood dish as their seafood are very fresh, don't try their steak as it's really not Italian's well-cooked dish and be sure to take an outdoor seat, the ambience is much nicer.