I THOUGHT, after my last review I wouldn’t be allowed back to entertain you with my dining out, as I was possibly a little snippy!

But it seems you like all that, so I can eat again.

This time I invited the charming and awfully high-powered Vickie to the table. Vickie is one of those people who is usually too busy to eat, and has such a backlog of life-min to squeeze into her spare time that she admits to speed reading back copies of the Horse & Hound during comfort breaks at work.

So I thought – let’s do a pizza – as they don’t need too much in the way of decision making. And we turned up, without booking, to Sapore D’Italia in Marlborough’s Kingsbury Street.

We were greeted by a cheery and helpful waitress and shown to our table. The atmosphere was pleasant, it is always nice to see the chefs in the kitchen smiling, and even the hooked-on disco beat Italian pop songs were fun. I still have an up-tempo ‘Volare’ earworm.

There is a good, and interesting selection of Italian wines on the menu, so we went for a bottle of Sangiovese to wet the whistles and ordered starters.

We thought it would be good to compare the food with other Italian meals we had had, so we picked some of the standard classics you might expect on an Italian menu. Starters were calamari(£6.95) and bruschetta (£6.95).

I have to say both dishes were beautifully presented with a rather artistic flourish of sticky balsamic. Decent portions too, and both dishes were delicious. The calamari was crispy yet soft. The bruschetta was crunchy, yet juicy. All round, we enjoyed the starters.

The wine was also flowing, and we really liked the simplicity of the restaurant’s styling. It is comfortable rather than fancy, and it does have the feel of a real Italian local. The website blurb says the head chef here ‘takes pride in family tradition to provide guests with the authentic Italian dining experience.’ And I like to believe he WAS raised in Turin and learned to cook from his mother.

By this point, the music had got a bit loud, and had begun to tire my dear companion, whose brow demonstrably furrowed once Pavorotti’s O Sole Mio got the treatment. They kindly turned it down a bit, with some typical Italian charm and a big smile.

We waited with eager anticipation of what the penne arrabiata and a mushroom pizza with extra chillies could deliver. They didn’t disappoint. The penne, while most likely not home made, was well cooked, and the sauce was a perfect combination of tangy tomato. It was delicious - and very well priced too at £9.95.

The pizza was the best I have had in a while. The dough was light and crispy in the right places, and the topping had just the right amount of gooey cheese to mushroom and chilli ratio.

Again well priced at £9.95 and certainly could knock the High Street pizza chains out of the park with value and taste.

So highly recommended both for value and for the quality of the food. The bill came to just over £60. Well worth it.

NIKI HINMAN