I Giardini Di Sorrento, City Road, Cardiff

I Giardini di Sorrento bills itself as ‘Coffee House-Bar-Kitchen’, though that doesn’t really do it justice. It’s certainly not formal dining, and as such it fits in well on City Road, but this isn’t a café knocking out a few token sandwiches as an afterthought.

Today’s specials of lobster and T-bone are a giveaway, though this is a menu heavily reliant on pizza and pasta.

Ichnusa, a Sardinian lager from an exclusively Italian list, is the least familiar so we go for that while we wait.

We start with a bowl of plump mussels in a garlicky liquor heavy with tomato and parsley. The seafood is zippily fresh and the broth the kind of thing you’d drain at a draught if you were home.

From a selection of six pizzas, the Forte with spicy sausage leaps out. The Neapolitan style base is a lovely thing with the right balance of yield and chew, and the mozzarella is generously scattered with fiery ‘nduja for an impressive main course.

Little nuggets of fried homemade fennel-scented sausage and wilted broccoli dot the portion of paccheri- squat little pasta tubes- for a hearty plateful.

In its three months I Giardini has amassed a sizeable following, but despite being busy when we visited (mainly with Italians) service is unfussy and friendly. It certainly brings something different to City Road’s foodscape and is  recommended.

I Giardini di Sorrento

12 City Road

Cardiff

CF24 3DL

www.i-giardini.com

www.facebook.com/igiardinidisorrento

@i_giardini