Fico

Fico (Italian Bar, Pizzeria and Grill)
263 Putney Bridge Road
London
SW15 2PU

Tel: 020 8780 1585

Nearest tube/rail: Putney Bridge/Putney BR

Putney high street is teeming with bars, cafes and restaurants. Most appetites and culinary cravings could possible be satisfied by the number of different restaurants along. Crave tapas or Japanese? A few steps along and there's bound to be a restaurant which will make you happy. Well, its not an iron clad guarantee but I bet you that most of the time you'll find something. Fico is a new addition to the bustling restaurant/bar/cafe scene in Putney and it offers an italian pizzeria/grill/bar combo to the discerning public. Set off the high street - far enough for an intimate dinner away from the main traffic but close enough to spit to really.

NOTE: This hag is in the middle of moving so pictures will be up once the all the PC bits are together again!

On the face of it, this trendy bar/restaurant is quite inviting and pleasant to the eye - dark wood floors, unassuming background music and polite waitstaff. There's even a shiny new stainless steel wood (?) fired oven, just waiting for pizza orders to be filled. The menus presented to us were quite utilitarian and seems to specialise in pizzas. Not a single pasta dish in sight with smatterings of salads and typical grilled meat options. As we were a hungry mob, we ordered their antipasto plate to share for starters before giving the our main courses some serious consideration.

For a Friday night, business was quite slow and one would think that it would be easier to get someone's attention to place our orders. But after much waiting around and flailing of arms, we managed to place our orders and get some wine. Again, after what seemed like a eon, our starters arrived and quite a decent size it was too. Unfortunately, it wasn't something worth waiting for and was only quite average. Dried out parma ham with some wrinkled olives was so-so and nothing to write home about. At around £7 you could have done better else where.

For mains, there were two orders of steak - usual meat and two vege with a little italian spin by way of some tossed rocket salad. Overall, not too impressed as it was quite average.

Both steaks were supposed to be medium but I think that the kitchen might need a little more quality control. One steak was still almost bloody whilst the other was a little tough to boot.

The Man had a craving for pizza and opted for the Florentine - spinach with an nicely cooked egg. Again, disappointing as a little bland and quite average.

For my mains I decided on a nice Niscoise salad - well, it sounded quite delish with a nice grilled tuna steak with a poached egg. Well, after everyone had received their mains (and what a time that took!) I was left hungry for quite some time, with no explaination. A couple of times the waiter promised that it would be a few more minutes before coming out one last time to apologise that the chef had ruined the poached egg and asked for patience whilst he perfected another one. Great - a restaurant with slow service and rude waiters who can't even apologise properly.

Anyways, eventually my Niscoise came and perhaps out of pique, I didn't enjoy it much. The poached egg was fine but served separately to the rest of the salad. Yes, it was done quite well but a poached egg is still a poached egg and doesn't seem to go well with this salad. At around £8 for the salad, its pretty average.

So at the end of the night, a disappointing meal and experience - save yourself for other places around Putney.







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