Zizzi Bradford - New Spring Menu Review

Since it opened in Bradford just over a year ago, Zizzi has been very successful in the city, which is hardly surprising as there was not much competition in the way of pizzas and Italian food in the city centre.

A new spring menu has just been launched. On our Thursday night visit the restaurant was nearly full to capacity with large groups, couples and also families.

Our visit did not get off to a good start: our reservation had not been registered, the air conditioning was blowing down over our table like a blast from the North Pole (we asked for it to be turned down which it quickly was) and then when the wine arrived it was not the one we ordered.

We were offered another seat, but by this time the air conditioning had been turned down and we were half way through our meal.

Thankfully things picked up later on.

We ordered the new Cicchetti Sharing Board which really is so plentiful that it would easily feed 3 people. The board comes complete with oven baked chicken and pepper skewers, mozzarella and pea arancini, prawn zucchini bites, Nduja sausage and mozzaralla bread, tomato pesto bruschetta and little soul breads. You could easily order this as a main.

For the main my partner went for the Seabass Verde, which is new to the spring menu. The verdict was that it was cooked just right but it might have been better presented if the lemon wasn't left as a half.

The Green Goddess Salad ordered as a side was a bit of a disappointment as apart from the green beans the rest of the salad did not seem to be very fresh.

I went for the Classic Italian Hot served in a Pizza Rustica version. This long pizza was indeed very hot, not surprising seeing it contained Pepperoni and red chillies. Perhaps too thin for many, but I enjoyed my main.

For dessert I went for the new Chocolate and Pistachio Sundae. A sweet treat. I thought that something was missing from the sundae when it was served: the whipped mascarpone cream was absent. Upon checking with the kitchen I discovered that they had run out of mascarpone cream. Perhaps it might have been better to relay that omission to the servers?

Fortunately I was offered some ordinary cream to go with my sundae.

My partner chose the new Summer Berry Sundae which again was missing the mascarpone cream, but with the extra cream offered as a substitute it made up for the omission.

With a little bit of training things should improve. I did visit the restaurant when it first opened and the food and service were first class. Perhaps it was an off night on this visit with it being so busy. They have a good product, so perhaps it might be better to visit earlier in the week when it would not be as busy or disorganised.

Zizzi, 10 Charles Street, The Broadway, Bradford BD1 1US
Telephone: 01274 731777