Review: Amico Bio, EC1A

As part of our attempts to broaden our pallates, every so often we purchase meal offers on places like Groupon.

We bought one back in September for an Italian restaurant near Farringdon and Barbican tube stations called Amico Bio.

However, due to generally being busy, we were only in a position last week to use the voucher - which was shortly before it expired - and after numerous emails back-and-forth we managed to book a table.

It styles itself as London's "first vegetarian, organic Italian restaurant". It is quite a small place, which probably explains why we had a few difficulties in actually booking a table.

The voucher covered the two of us for a three course meal plus expresso. Naturally, we took full advantage.

Drinks

They have quite an extensive selection of vegetarian and organic wines and beers.

After much deliberation, we decided to have a bottle of the house red: Sannio Aglianico.

For a red wine, it was not particuarly fruity, but it went very well with our starter.  It also went down very easily. Possibly a bit too easily...

We then moved on to our food.

Starter

We both had the "insalata di gorgonzola, pere e lupini" - a gorgonzola salad served with beans and pears.

We both found this to be very light but surprisingly filling.  The gorgonzola was lovely - it melted in your mouth.

Main course

Between us we had the "tortino di zucca con peperoni e patate arrosto":

As you can tell from the photo it is a compact dish. Unfortunately, it was a bit too compact, and I didn't find it to be particularly filling.

We also chose a vegetable tempura dish with sweet & sour sauce [we didn't catch the name]:

This was very light - deep-fried veg in batter - but there was a very large portion, and it came across as a mountain of food due to the amount that we were served. The only downside is that it could have been served a bit hotter.

Dessert

For our afters, we went for the "torta di mele, fichi e datteri":















and a dish called "Macedonia tiepida di frutta con panna":

 

These came with our expressos.

The Macedonia was surprisingly filling and was lovely: a mix of apples, whipped cream and had spices sprinkled on it. Hopefully London's Greek restaurants won't find out that there's a dish called Macedonia, because it may cause a few issues...

As for the torte, it was very filling and homely, and very enjoyable.

Service

The staff were very friendly and came back every so often to top-up our glasses and generally check how we were doing and our views on the food.

Overall we quite enjoyed our meal, even though one of the main courses was a bit disappointing, and were surprised at the variety and number of vegetarian alteratives to Italian food.

We would go back again, even if it is simply because their menu changes every day, and so it would be fun to see what else they can create.