Yet another lovely evening in London (previous one here); veggie food followed by We Were Evergreen. The gig was in Shoreditch so I looked on Happy Cow to find somewhere in the area to eat beforehand, and found Amico Bio (near Barbican tube station). I don’t think I’ve ever been to a vegetarian Italian restaurant before, so I was quite excited 
While we wait for our mains, we had some olives. And I’m honestly not exaggerating when I say that those green olives below were absolutely the very best olives I have ever eaten in my life.
For my main I had a dish with tempeh and roasted veggies. You don’t see tempeh on menus in restaurants often (or in many shops) so I wanted to give it a try…
Unfortunately I wasn’t wowed by this. It was ok, it just generally didn’t have much exciting flavour – I felt a bit like I could have made it myself at home, pretty easily. It was nice but just not very special.
My friend Esther had the tempura for her main:
I think when I saw tempurah on the menu I assumed it would have something with it…but this was just a giant pile of tempurah. Now I’m sure that’s great if you’re the world’s biggest tempura fan but for most people I think this would just be too much fried veg on a plate.
I asked Esther for her thoughts on the restaurant and she said: “Friendly and attentive staff, cosy atmosphere, great prices, nicely presented. If you want to eat your weight in tempura this is for you. Tempura done to perfection but left feeling I’ve had my life’s quota of it, and still feeling that way the next day. Other dishes looked nice but somehow felt lacking in variety”.
I wish that I’d got something off the menu with seitan in it – there were a couple of things and I wonder what they would have been like. I think I’d probably give this place another chance at some point, I just wasn’t overly impressed with the food. But the place itself was nice and cosy, and the staff were really friendly. And let’s not forget the olives. Best olives ever.
And here’s a pic of the best part of the night…love them
See Happycow reviews here
44 Cloth Fair
London
EC1A 7JQ
Tel: 020 7600 7778
Opening Times
- Monday to Friday 12:00 to 10:30pm
- Saturday 5:00pm to 10:30pm
- Sunday and Bank Holiday closed
My mouth is watering. I could seriously ‘do’ some olives right now!
I went to Amico Bio a few months ago, I wasn’t impressed either. I must get round to doing my review of it!