The 18th February 2012 was our first wedding anniversary, and we wanted to mark the occasion (steady!). We were oop North in Rawtenstall visiting Loz’s Mum and we wanted to go somewhere ‘nice’, not crazy expensive, and not a shit hole, somewhere ‘nice’. The mother in law recommended ‘Bellini’, an Italian restaurant in the nearby town of Ramsbottom (I know..). The reviews online seemed fairly positive and the MiL had been before and enjoyed it, so we thought we’d give it a go.
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| Us lot 🙂 |
The restaurant was quiet when we went in, but we got a lovely warm welcome by the very Italian manager. He was wonderful with G, and she was actually taken with him too! After we were seated she whispered to me ‘Daddy, he called me a princess!!’ (she likes that!). The choice on the menu was vast, not too much to make your head spin, but enough to mull over. When we came to order MiL didn’t want to try the Italian pronunciation , so she pointed at the menu and said ‘I’ll have one of those’, the manager was obviously disappointed at her lack of effort and said “We dun ‘ave *Northern Accent* ‘one of those’ on tha menu’. We laughed 🙂
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| G demolishing her dinner |
The food was beautiful, really top notch, and the portions were very generous for the prices. The Lamb Shank Loz had was HUGE and covered in lovely, tender meat that just fell away from the bone. My peppered steak was wonderful, spot on Medium-Rare and the vegetables the accompanied it were fantastic. For the children they basically can cook anything off the adult menus down to a smaller portion. G picked a ‘Calzone’, she liked the idea of a ‘folded pizza’! I’m not entirely sure it was a child’s portion, it was very big, but G does love her food and demolished it!
The manager was extremely helpful, and after we’d finished our mains he asked G if she wanted some ice cream, she did and he went to get her some. This gave us a bit of time to browse the pudding menu and G get on with her pudding without having to wait for ours to be prepared. Nice.
The restaurant did start filling up as our meal was ending, but it still had a nice, quiet, intimate vibe downstairs, mostly couples and small groups, and upstairs they had a few large groups, good thinking to keep the two separate.
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| This was AMAZING! |
We all left very full, and very pleased with our food, I loved my Tiramisu, it was divine (and quite boozy too!).
My only negative is their website doesn’t seem to exist anymore, I think it’s crucial to have a website (if the management are reading this – get in touch – I’ll build you one!). They do have a Twitter account though (although could use it a leetle more!)
So if you happen to be in the town named after a Rams Bottom or close it, I’d heartily recommend Bellini! We’ll certainly be heading back there again!
