This piece comes from Sarah Harding, who blogs over at Bedsit Bonne Vivante. You can see Sarah’s reviews for Bristol Bites here.
Prezzo, situated on the Harbourside next to the Aquarium, was quiet when we walked in. After not liking the look of an ominous cloud overhead, we chose to sit indoors and were given a booth. On first impression I liked the space, it’s wide and open with trendy exposed brick and metal work, a nice view of the open kitchen and good music in the background.
We had a very efficient waitress who took our drinks orders, a Peroni (£4.99) for him and a Gin and Elderflower Cooler (£5.99) for me. We also ordered, on recommendation, flatbreads (£8.49) to share to start, each quarter topped with the following: N’duja sausage and mozzarella; mini bruschetta; prosciutto, mozzarella and tomato; and a mini pane con cipolla. This also came with a small salad of rocket and tomatoes.
The Gin Cooler was sadly a bit lacking. It wasn’t a particularly interesting drink and I didn’t get much but sweet apple from it. For the price I would have liked a bit more pomp and ceremony: a better glass, some garnish and so on.
The flatbreads, on the other hand, looked beautiful, were freshly cooked and tasted fantastic. I could have happily had another round of those. We both agreed our favourite was the spicy N’duja sausage, a good slow burner!
For main we chose to split an “Executive” Prawn and Calabrese pizza (£14.29) which came with cherry tomato, basil, garlic, red onion, peppers and rocket finished with a St. Clements citrus, chilli and mint dressing and mozzarella. This was served on a roasted red pepper tapenade base. We also opted for the Italian burgers, two sliders that came with prosciutto on one and pesto and mozzarella on the other.
The pizza was enormous and, like the flatbreads, was gorgeous to look at. The only complaint I had was that the prawns looked a bit anaemic, but they were large, sweet and juicy. The topping was fresh with a lovely, tangy zing from the citrus and mint dressing. The peppers were sweet and the base was crispy. I really enjoyed it and we took half of it home for breakfast the next morning.
The burgers were a little lacking: the buns were a little on the stale side and I couldn’t taste the elusive fennel, black onion and sesame seeds that were topping the bun. The chips that came with the burgers were a decent bowl of fries.
For pudding, I couldn’t resist a hat trick of carbs so opted for a mini calzone (£4.59) filled with Nutella and banana. This came with a hot drink of my choice, so I opted for a double espresso. He had a trio of mini panna cottas (£5.99).
The panna cottas tasted OK but it did sadly look like someone sat on them before they came to us. The calzone was undercooked and we both choked on the icing sugar but it was tasty nonetheless.
All in all the meal was nice enough, but there were a few things that could be tweaked and improved to have made the whole meal worth what would have been a hefty price tag. I would, however, return for the flatbreads and pizza alone.
Please note: our meal was received free of charge, but this in no way impacted on our opinion. We were not obliged to write a positive review, and the venue did not see this review before it was put up on the site.