| Ambiance: |  (4 / 5) |
| Service: | (3.5 / 5) |
| Value for money: | (4 / 5) |
| Toilet: | (4 / 5) |
| Pizza: | (2.5 / 5) |
I still don’t know why I went to Woking, but I did and after browsing what the city centre had to offer (largely chains or fast food joints) I was beginning to think I’d be having dinner at Nandos. However, a quick google search introduced us to an independent Italian restaurant, which proved impossible to find. Nearing admitting defeat, we asked someone for help and they recommended Latino, saying it had ‘yummy, Italian food’ and as I’m a connoisseur now (sarcasm!), I thought why not.
Considering it was a Friday night, we were lucky to get a table but we were sat instantly and greeted by Italian staff. In all honesty, I felt like I’d been taken straight back to Italy – the décor and layout of the restaurant was very similar and our first waiter reminded me exactly of what I experienced in Italy. By this I mean, slightly abrupt, quick to take an order and don’t understand my jokes, or my Italian it seemed. We ordered some house white wine (house genuinely tasted good in Italy so I took a gamble) and it proved to be quite drinkable. The list of wine by the glass was quite limited and as I wasn’t keen on drinking a whole bottle, largely to myself, that’s another reason why I made do with house.
The Menu
The food menu was great. It had a lot of yummy sounding options and further took me back to my former Italian adventure. There were options for antipasto, primo, primo as well as pizza options. As I didn’t fancy too much food, I opted to go for two starters, starting with mussels in a tomato sauce and then a half portion of tagliatelle al salmone (as recommended by our new friendly waitress). We also ordered a quattro stagione pizza, which didn’t overly excite me given as anchovies may be in my very limited food hate list.
Mussels (sorry again about the photo!)
If you’ve read many of my reviews, you’ll have realised I’m very wary of ordering mussels as they’re often overcooked. However, Latino definitely exceeded my expectations on this front. The mussels were huge and perfectly cooked, and the accompanying sauce was delicious too. The tagliatelle was slightly too al dente for me and I think the sauce could have been a little wetter but these two criticisms are what I found all over Italy, so I guess Latino can’t be called anything but authentic! The pizza, on looks alone didn’t look too appetising and on taste, without sounding too critical, I think it could’ve been better. The dough was slightly chewy, implying it’d been over stretched (or rolled) and hadn’t been left long enough to prove. And, obviously I didn’t like the topping, so all in all – one bite was enough for me.
Spaghetti al salmone
We turned down coffee and pudding in lieu of a gelateria I’d seen on the way down from the train station. I don’t know what happens to me when I smell sugar, but I feel like a big kid again and it’d be quite hard to wipe the smile off my face. We shared a sundae of pistachio and cookie dough gelato, blueberry sorbet, fudge chunks and obviously the customary whipped cream. I was in heaven. So, I left Woking feeling very sick, but content – and I definitely slept well that night!
Recommendation
