This pleasant Italian bistro in Durban’s inner suburb of Berea offers a nice-all around dining experience but doesn’t knock your socks off. I’m not sure it’s trying to, though.

The expansive upstairs dining room is decorated with a generic Mediterranean theme, comprising tiled floors, stone pillars, burgundy wall accents, and oil paintings of the Tuscan countryside. The crowd is not necessarily young and trendy, but fashionably dressed 30- to 50-something couples and groups.

The plastic laminated menus did not make a great impression on me, but they contain a decent selection of pizzas, poultry, meats, seafood dishes, creative cocktails, and a kids menu. Most were fairly common dishes, but a few standout items caught my eye, including the marrow and truffle fillet, the chili butter chicken (served on quinoa with Greek salad topped with tzatziki), the prawn and lango bisque, the lemon chicken and chickpea salad, and the warm Italian cake with Bar One sauce and vanilla gelato.

I ordered the prawn royale appetizer, which was breaded and fried and served with coriander garlic and lime mayo. It was slightly too crispy for my liking, but otherwise good. For mains I had the butternut ravioli with creamy tomato sauce, rocket, goat cheese and Parmesan. Not only was this dish beautifully presented, but it was extremely tasty as well. Being a chocoholic I also had to try the warm Italian cake, which did not disappoint.

The service here is one of the more notable high points of the restaurant — the servers are very conscientious, polite, and well trained, which is not the norm in South Africa, unfortunately.

Although the prices are reasonable here, if you are on a tight budget happy hour cocktails are available till 7 pm at a discount, and Monday is discount pasta night.