Editor Pick
San Marco
- March 27, 2005
- Rated 4 of 5 by
joellevand from Edgewater Park, New Jersey
We’d been training for 3 days at a well-known bank firm, and by the third afternoon, another sandwich shop or café in St. Peter’s Square was just not going to cut it for me or my coworkers. We stood around for a bit, debating where we could eat for less than a tenner, each of us suggesting a different sit-down café but with no one agreeing on a single place. Finally, it was the tall, blonde Alice who came up with a suggestion: "San Carlo, behind Kendell’s!"
San Carlo is the kind of place you trek across town in painful Nine West shoes to eat at over a leisurely one and a half hour lunch with your new friends from your new job, and if you come any time after 4pm, you probably won’t get a table. The entire place just screams swank and posh with its subdued lighting, cushioned chairs, crisp white-linen tablecloths, and various goblets for various different types of wines I’ll never learn. It’s the sort of place where ordering a bottle of wine includes a wine tester, eight different waiters are there to serve you at any given time, and a 10-piece place setting awaits you when you sit down at the table.
As with any smart, stylish place, the portions are inversely proportionate to the price of the dish you purchase. A magharita pizza sets Kelly back 6 quid while my small plate of spaghetti pomodoro (spaghetti with crushed tomatoes and whole stewed cherry tomatoes) costs 7. Alice’s even smaller plate of spaghetti carbona comes in at nearly 8 pounds.
That said, the food was excellent, and not a bite was left of our lunches afterwards. However, be warned. Soft drink refills are expensive—£1.70 for about 4 ounces, so sip slowly.
From journal Six Months Living in Manchester