Looking at the timetable, I realised I'd just missed the bus and was settling in for lengthy wait when I turned round and saw a dimly lit large room, with tables and chairs, lots of bare, dark wood, and a large bar. Further investigation revealed it to be Jamie's Italian, other branches of which I'd coincidentally heard slated recently.
Could it really be as bad as people made out? I had a long journey ahead of me, and a meal would conveniently take me beyond the West Midlands rush hour.
It's quite a short menu that strolls around Italy (and a burger) with lots of Jamie Oliver cheeky chappy geezer-speak scattered around. It's a refreshing change from the usual Britalian stock-in-trade-menus that dominate so many of the pepper-mill-toting high street Italians. That's a good start. From the greeting onwards, staff were good too.
As I went through the various items I fancied, working out just how greedy I could be, it quickly became apparent that while superficially good value, you could quickly run up a hefty bill. I reined in my enthusiasm, and decided not to go for those dishes (burrata and charcuterie) that relied merely on sourcing.
Chicken Liver Tortellini sounded interesting: even if they're made in a central production kitchen, they're not the bought-in tortellini that are so often found in Britalian pizza-pasta joints. The menu talks the talk, verging into breathy Marks & Spencer this-is-not-just style language: they're not just chicken livers, they're Norfolk Black chicken livers flamed with Vin Santo, sage & pancetta. Yes, well, we'll see.
Sadly, it's just me who will see, as it's so gloomy at my table there are no photographs. Having been impressed with the menu, I was looking forward to the critics being proved wrong. Oh dear.
It looked good. Half a dozen neat tortellini, sage butter, some crispy prosciutto on top. I wasn't impressed by the whole sage leaves. Weirdly, the first tortellino I cut into was empty! The next one wasn't, thankfully. I wouldn't know that it had seen any vin santo, and any pancetta element in the filling was limited, but it was a very good tortellini filling, avoiding the pastiness of virtually all commercial offerings. The pasta was pretty decent, at least until you got to where it had been folded over: there it was really thick, which meant it was undercooked. Very undercooked. Not right. The waitress reacted promptly and said she'd talk to the kitchen and get another dish prepared, properly this time.
It wasn't. This time, there was a crisp sage leaf alongside the prosciutto. The tortellini were mad hot, but still suffered from too thick a sealed edge that hadn't been able to cook through. This was a production error, not a cooking error. The manager came over this time, and took one look at the undercooked pasta, identified by looking at it that it was undercooked, and that it would scarcely be possible to cook it properly without wildly overcooking the rest. He said he'd take it off the bill, and remove it from the menu for the night.
My main course was a very creditable fritto misto. A good selection of fish, all nicely cooked, all nice and fresh. Very clean flavours, nicely seasoned. I liked the tartare sauce too: nice and creamy with good balance. The presentation was a little over the top, however. The pieces of fish were presented on a sheet of brown paper, scrunched so it stood up vertically on one side of the plate. Then, on top of the fish, was a rather towering structure made out of deep-fried angel hair pasta. Certainly visually impressive, but somewhere between difficult and impossible to eat. The nest of crispy pasta also seemed a bit over-seasoned to me. I'd almost given up on it and was moving it aside when I noticed it contained a large prawn: head on, tail on, but otherwise peeled. Again nicely cooked. But I almost missed it amid all the silly crispy pasta.
Fritto misto and sparkling water came to £19.90.
So, overall a bit of a mixed experience, rescued by the excellent service.
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