Cantina Del Ponte

Bustling is the only cliché to describe Cantina del Ponte. Set within a few hundred meters of LondonBridge, the Italian restaurant offers unobstructed views of the river and the sleek yachts of the super-rich.
The venue’s style is based on a traditional Tratorria, with an airy design and a colorful mural depicting Italian street life adorning one wall. The waiters are in the classic posh restaurant model; conscientious, helpful, sometimes bordering on the irritating in their eagerness to please. The restaurant’s hip, modern style is clearly drawing in the rich trade that its owners want- the place is full of packs of traders and wealthy young people taking in the continental ambience.
For starters, we have tasty Bruschetta with rocket and slices of swordfish. The swordfish is unusually delicate for such a strong-tasting fish and being sliced into such thin strips really helps to bring out the taste, while the Bruschetta is a very neat, classic little dish.
Our main courses were Spaghetti allo Scoglio, which is seafood spaghetti to you and me, and pollo. The Seafood spaghetti seemed to be literally endless- two people working at it for half an hour barely made a dent in the massive mound of spaghetti and tasty pieces of fish and shellfish. The aromatic taste of basil and other herbs and spices in the spaghetti added a lot to the dish, as did the deliciously tender baby octopuses.
The pollo was tender, tasty and very fiddly as it tends to be, although a little sparse for £13.95. The flavors went especially well with the crispy rosemary baby potatoes and juicy spinachi side dishes which we ordered with the meal. The entire meal was washed down with a tastebud-stinging Madregale Bianco 2010.
Cantina Del Ponte manages the difficult feat of both maintaining a very high quality of food and having and elegant rather than decadent atmosphere. It is clearly a good choice for a discerning eater, or even a not-so-discerning one who enjoys spaghetti meals which would comfortably feed the 5,000. A very “tasty” Italian.
Service: 4/5
Value for money: 4/5
Quality: 5/5
Ambience: 4/5

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