Cavallini Restaurant

User rating

 

8.8 (13)

I/We visited many times over the years, even had a wedding dinner there all excellent.Must be the best for overall dining experience, yes msybe more expensive than others but in my opinion well worth it.Food excellent, service and staff attentive without being OTT, as it has been some time since my last visit good to see standards are kept up as before.Ideal for a special night to celebrate whatever, they will even organise a cake or anything else for you to make the night go well

Here`s somewhere that seems to be generally succeeding in offering pretty authentic and certainly damned tasty Italian food.

The menu is packed full of the country`s classics. Of course, they are constrained by the availability of ingredients and, as this is Cyprus, this means that fish and shellfish is often frozen rather than fresh as elsewhere in the Med. But then, the seafood dishes are easy to avoid.

There are separate sections for hot, cold and salad based starters. This provided one plate of a simple, light mixed salad, well dressed with vinaigrette.

There`s an extensive listing of pastas and risottos, available in either starter of main course size. I went with a Macaroni Arrabbiata. It was a slight surprise to be asked how hot I wanted this to be. It`s also the sort of nonsensical question that restaurants sometimes ask - how on earth can you know what they mean by “mild, medium, or hot” if you havnt been there before. Is their idea of “medium” your idea of “medium”. Well, in this case, no it wasn`t. Arrabiata should have agood chilli hit without being overpowering - so I went for “medium” and could barely detect the spice. That aside, it was a really good tomato sauce - rich and very herby.

Fegato all Veneziana is my favourite North Italian dish. The sauce is based on lots of thinly sliced onion, long cooked so that they almost melt into the wine and stock, to give a rich coating to flash fried thin slices of calves liver. Calves liver is possibly not easily available so lambs liver had been substituted. There were onions but not enough and not cooked for anywhere near long enough. The sauce didn`t have the expected richness. This was much more British liver and onions than the Italian version. But it was good and tasty all the same.

The other main was a fillet steak, cooked bang on to the requested medium. It came with a very good red wine and balsamic sauce - both elements working well together.

Some good veg, simply cooked, served separately, complemented both dishes.

Desserts were excellent as you hope they will be in an Italian place. A poached pear, surrounded by a Madeira sauce, decorated with shreds of orange rinds and some vanilla ice cream. All the separate elements working together showed there`s some skill in the kitchen - but there needed to be more sauce and it need more oomph.

A classic cassata was also well done and here, the bitterness of the orange rind worked really well with an otherwise very sweet dish.

Service was very friendly and generally pretty efficient. We`d had an aperitif, half bottle of Bardolino and a bottle of water. Not a cheap meal but good value at €88. I wish my local Italian was as good as here.

Wow, went here for dinner last night and my oh my was it good. I started with the prawns in white wine sauce and my husband had the porcini soup. Both were fantastic. For a main I had the Saltembaco alla romano(?) and my husband had the linguini vongole. Again, both were fantastic. For dessert I had the chocolate and white chocolate mousse, can't think of the name on the menu, and he had the tiramisu. Again fantastic. We walked out of there so full. The meal was great. We will definitely be going back here again.

My partner and I ate here on a Friday night and didn't realise that it had only reopened that night for the season. We were the first ones there and there were only 2 other couples when we left so there was not much atmosphere.
However, I cannot fault the staff. they were very professional but friendly and very attentive without being over bearing.
The food was extremely good - I had mussels in white wine (mussels were a little small however) and penne amatriciana. My partner had spaghetti with ragu and veal. the Cypriot wine we had to go with it was €16 a bottle and was excellent. The meal came to €60 in total.
The only problem I had is that I was very ill that might when I went to bed and I suspected that it was the mussels as I had shared my sandwich at lunch with my partner and he was fine.
I would probably recommend it as a special occasion venue but to be honest I have had pasta just as good for a lot less. I think it is a little overpriced and for that reason I probably won't be going back.

This place seems to get better. We go every time and this time failed to book and only just managed to get a seat on a busy evening. The guys in there manage all the tables really well, always seem to recognise previous cuistomers and have a great rapport with everyone. It's almost worth going in to watch them operate! Food is great, still the best risotto in town and deserves to be a popualr as it is. Getting a bit pricey but better value than somewhere like Grazie and full of atmosphere.