Despite having gorged ourselves on bargain calzone the night before at Epping’s Prezzo, by Saturday lunchtime we were sitting at a table in the town’s Unico Ristaurante. The fact that TFL had closed down most of the Central Line for yet more essential engineering work this weekend did limit our choice of where to eat, but Unico does do mighty fine pizza.
Unico Epping
Now while Prezzo has the bargain bucket prices (so long as you remember the vouchers), Unico is a local independently family run business and is therefore unique, so no predictable chain menu or bland uniform surroundings.
Everybody was quite hungry so we started with some garlic bread, as you can see we’d wolfed down half of it by the time I remembered to get the camera out of my coat.
Garlic bread
For mains I had a Quatro Stagione pizza with ham, salami, mozzarella and artichokes.
Quatro Stagione Pizza
This was very good indeed even if it didn’t look as exciting as Mab’s Gamberini al Diavola with its fat juicy langoustine tails.
Gamberini al diavola
Our guests enjoyed a traditional lasagna and penne al arabiata, both of which were judged to be excellent and despite the very generous portions we all had room to stuff down a pudding, although the only home-made item on the desert menu was the tiramisu.
Whats the damage?
Complete with a couple of glasses of wine, some fizzy water and coffees the bill was a meagre £79 for four people, not bad for a Saturday lunchtime.
Unico is a family orientated restaurant and there were at least three birthdays being celebrated while we were there complete with special cake and singing waiters.
Unico, 261 High Street Epping 01992 577776
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Sadly Unico closed down in October, yet another victim of the recession, greedy local council business rates and the unerring assault of chain restaurants on the UK’s high streets driving the independent out of business.