Expensive-looking Italian job

Trawling through my records the other evening - it gives me something to do when I'm bereft of social engagements - I calculated that I've reviewed two venues in Fulham Broadway in the past seven years.

On each occasion I've been optimistic that this apparently prosperous part of town, although littered with society's debris, was turning the corner into respectability.

Although Havana (reviewed in 1997) and the Elk Bar (2003) are both still going strong, the ascendancy of the Broadway has been underwhelming.

What is now known locally as South-West London's 'meat-packing' district (so named as a large proportion of the local community are testosterone-fuelled, itinerant Antipodean males) seems to have embraced banal, workaday venues serving fighting lagers and with limited aspirations. Fulham Broadway is like Blackpool without the sea.

It was au revoir to Bonjour Vietnam recently and a new Italian-style bar and restaurant took its place on the Broadway, opening just a few weeks ago. It's an expensive-looking job, every inch of it shiny, new and true to the fantasy of the designer.

Cold-white and warm-red decor blend happily enough, and the squashy brown leather sofas behind the car showroom-style windows make for a perfect spot to watch the traffic thunder by outside. Clusters of small tables and stools spread all the way to the back of the room and a vast, open space near the bar offers nowhere to sit or lean your drinks on a busy evening.

The Italian theme is almost too loose to be noticeable. Even the most incurable romantic couldn't transpose the courting couples here necking pints of Kronenbourg or Foster's to the Trevi Fountain. An Italian restaurant (with an Italian menu) occupies a similar sized space in the basement.

There is a cocktail list, reasonably priced at £5 a throw, but I was incandescent with rage at the appalling quality and balance of ingredients in both a Cosmopolitan and a Daiquiri.

The wine list offers some hope and happily promotes Italian vines. The Frizzante Spago prosecco (£18 per bottle) is a gently sparkling wine and much more palatable than many champagnes.

The staff were an enthusiastic enough gang of youngsters (although I expect they hail from above a kebab shop in the East End rather than downtown Treviso), practising their flaring kills behind the bar, turning their hand to the kitchen and producing dreary mezze plates when the chef was off duty.