Do over
I’ve not enjoyed my few attempts at dining with vegetarian Italian restaurant Amico Bio.
On several occasions, we have been served dairy cheese even after we had explicitly asked for the dishes to be served vegan. If you are vegan or have ever met a vegan, you know we like to check this sort of thing when ordering.
I found myself in the proximity of the Amico Bio location near the Barbican Centre last week. I was in that part of town to watch a group of famous and accomplished Mexican musicians perform a concert of Morrissey and Smiths cover songs (yes, it was as fabulous as it sounds) and needed a quick dinner before the show.
Was I impressed with Amico Bio on this occasion? Check out my thoughts on the meal below.
The starters you see above were tasty and everyone at my table seemed happy with them. I won’t say they were outstanding, but they did they job of keeping us busy while we waited for the main course.
The mains were adequate but not overly tasty.
Actually, I’m at a bit of a loss what to say about my meal (tempeh and vegetables) as it simply didn’t taste of much at all. Priced at over £10, the plate didn’t have a lot of food on it which I wouldn’t have minded if it had been exploding with taste.
When I asked Josh about his pasta dish, he said it was nice.
At least nothing was delivered to our table with dairy cheese on it, so I suppose that is a plus.
How do you feel about Amico Bio? Is it a bit on the boring side or just not to my liking?
I’ve had the same sort of experience. Not overly imaginative or tasty. The prices are high and you would expect more when paying that.
I did like it….but last time I was at the barbican one we were supposed to have a 3 course meal but it took so long to come out we had to leave!over an hour between starter and main course…they kept apologising but it was still frustrating we didn’t end up getting desert! The seitan kebab was nice (if they still serve it)
Bland, and last time I ate here I got food poisoning… Onion rings were so greasy I couldn’t eat them (and I love onion rings!)
I went for their afternoon tea once, letting them know ahead of time that I was vegan (my friend had the vegetarian afternoon tea) – as expected it was a platter of sandwiches and cakes and scones to choose from, but the vegan selection was frustratingly small. My friend ended up with 2 scones and 2 pieces of cake where the vegan replacement wasn’t a literal item for item replacement. Not worth it. Good coffee though.
I had a weird experience there not too long ago, I ordered the vegan burger but didn’t ask for cheese. They were pretty insistent on me having vegan cheese with it so I decided to go for it. When it came it was bread, lettuce and vegan cheese. No burger. It was totally weird.
I didn’t enjoy my experience (Holborn branch) a couple of years ago. No service issues, but I remember the starter being very tasty but tiny, and the main being utterly bland. We all passed on dessert and I haven’t been back since – I was a bit embarrassed to have gone with non-vegans…
It used To be a lot better. Has gone very middle of road especially in barbican branch
It’s been so hit and miss over the years that I have given up on them now. I used to live around the corner from them (the branch near the Barbican) and at one stage ate there about once a week when I was working late because it was handy and I wanted to support them, but I would say that more than half the experiences were decidedly average for the price and they used to employ a lot of very young people who didn’t seem to care about the food, nor could they explain to people what Seitan was (I had to step in a few times). Staffing got better over the years but food was still just very average and too expensive for what it is. The clowns once tried to charge me almost 5 pounds for a “freshly made” carrot juice out of a bottle.
The salads are great because you can really taste the organic veg but i don’t go to a restaurant for salad. Real shame because it’s one of the few restaurants that actually cooks with seitan (and the kebabs were nice), love the dining room, particularly in winter. To have all those great ingredients, a lovely space and still produce such a “Meh” experience is quite frankly beyond me.
I won’t go back.
I went to the Barbican branch just over four years ago and had much the same experience as everyone else seems to have done (hence why I haven’t been back since!). The food was bland and portion sizes were small for the price you paid. The only thing I was absolutely thrilled with was the vegan cheese board for dessert. I’ve never seen a cheese board option anywhere else and the selection of freshly baked bread was really lovely. The vegan cheese was bought in, whereas the ordinary cheese board boasted ‘made on the premises’ cheese, which was a shame but understandable. Amico bio has such potential but could really do with a shake up.