food according to pedders

As many of us Londoners know, eating in Knightsbridge usually doesn’t guarantee a small bill. If anything, we eye up the card machine nervously as we pay for our meal and hope the words ‘card declined’ don’t pop up on the screen. However, my marvellous friend showed me a cheap little eatery on Tuesday which is literally opposite Harrods and, even better, with a bargainous price-tag attached.

Zia Teresa is a little Italian restaurant with plenty of charm and a good number of waiters and waitresses running around the place serving customers. When we came in from the pouring rain (Dear Weather, it’s July FYI) they sat us easily as it was quiet at 8pm but it soon livened up with plenty of regulars, most of them Italian or Spanish. The restaurant isn’t gourmet or particularly classy but it feels as if you’ve just walked into an Italian restaurant in Italy with its sky ceilings, abundance of rustic wood and tiled floors. Perfect for a cold and drizzly night.

We were rather hungry so right off the bat we ordered some bruschetta al pomodoro (£5.50) and barchetta saporita all’aglio (£3.95) to munch on whilst we perused the menu. This, along with the house red (£17) hit the spot nicely. The tomatoes were amazingly fresh and tasted gorgeous on the bruschetta. Also, very generous helpings as there was so much on there that the tomatoes were tumbling off which meant lots of picking at the plate once we were done… Not that we were complaining. The garlic bread was a bit burned and charred tasting. I’m sure had it been taken off the heat a few minutes earlier it would have oozed with butter and cooked garlic.

Zia Teresa - Knightsbridge: Scaloppa alla milanese, the remains of the bruschetta & burned garlic bread, and the Fiorentina pizza. (iPhone so forgive the quality!)

After that, we ordered our mains. I had the scaloppa alla milanese (escalope of breaded veal with spaghetti and a tomato sauce, £18.50) and my friend had the Fiorentina pizza (tomato, mozzarella, spinach & egg, £11.50). When they came, the portions were huge and even I, a staunch carnivore, balked a little at the size of the plate. The veal was okay. Just okay. It would have been better had they not made it quite so thin; the breadcrumbs were dry and completely overpowered any flavour of meat. The pasta that came with it however was beautiful and bouncy with a rich, fresh tomato sauce. I didn’t try the pizza but it looked beautiful and was on a thin, crispy crust. 

The best part of the meal was the tastecard. If you book, you can get 241 on meals which took ours down to a reasonable £25 quid each. It’s not somewhere I’d go if was paying full whack as I thought the food was okay but not too fantabulous. However, for a 50% off place that close to Harrods, it’s a real treat.

Rating: 6.5/10

Address: Zia Teresa, 6 Hans Road, SW3 1RX

Telephone: 020 7589 7634