Yesterday I was invited to pass by and try the newly opened Margherita pizzeria at the Arabella project. It’s a Lebanese franchise that I had already tried a few years back in Lebanon for the first time so it wasn’t really new to me. I ended up going with two of my friends who love my food reviews (not really) and whom I love taking with me when I’m going to review food (also not really). Even though they’re very difficult to please we all ended up leaving the place with the same impression, that we would definitely go back again.
Arabella is a fairly new project, it’s been open for a few months now but the majority of the restaurants there are not open yet. Currently the biggest two are Red Lobster and Olive Garden but there are a whole bunch of Alshaya restaurants opening there soon including Texas Roadhouse and The Cheesecake Factory. Margherita is located on the ground floor of the project and has a beautiful wooden façade that wouldn’t look out of place on a street somewhere in Europe. Once you walk into the restaurant you have the pizza kitchen on the right hand side and the dinning area on the left. We ended up sitting next to the window overlooking the inside of the still quiet and vacant Arabella project.
Since we were three people we ended up ordering a whole bunch of things inclduing:
Minestrone soup
Burrata cheese with cherry tomatoes
Grilled calamari with a side salad
Prosciutto E Funghi pizza (Tomato sauce, mozzarella, turkey ham, mushrooms and basil)
Diavola pizza (Tomato sauce, mozzarella, spicy beef pepperoni and basil)
Homemade oven baked beef lasagna
Grilled beef “Tagliata” with sautéed spinach and mashed potatoes
Classic Italian Tiramisu
Lemon crème brûlée
Hazelnut chocolate fondant with ice cream
I think from everything we had the only thing we didn’t like was the Lemon crème brûlée. I really enjoyed my minestrone soup especially since it was freezing cold outside, the grilled calamari was a great healthy starter and the burrata cheese was delicious although I don’t think I’d be willing to pay KD8 for it (or any starter for that matter). The pizzas followed quickly right after. While we were on our way to Margherita I was telling my friends that the only issue I had with the pizzas in their Lebanese branches was the fact their sauce was a bit too strongly flavored. Thankfully that wasn’t the case here and I made sure I told the chef that I preferred his tomato sauce at Margherita Kuwait more than the one at Margherita in Lebanon.
We also shared a lasagna which although it was good I’d probably always choose a pizza over it. Finally our last main course arrived which was the grilled beef “Tagliata”. We had asked for it medium rare but our steak arrived partially medium rare and partially just medium which wasn’t an issue as soon as we started eating it since the beef was really really tender. The desserts turned out to be the biggest surprise of our lunch. If you put aside the Lemon crème brûlée which neither of us liked, the tiramisu and the chocolate fondant were ridiculously good. My favorite was the chocolate fondant which I was having alone mostly since my friends were attacking the tiramisu which according to one of them is the best tiramisu he’s had in Kuwait. To quote him, “this isn’t a classic Italian tiramisu, this is better than classic”.
For those of you who used to frequent Al-Forno in the Avenues when they first opened and up until three years ago will recognize the chef, Marcello Piazza. I used to see him the whole time while I was dinning there so I recognized him when I spotted him in the restaurant. Turns out he left Al-Forno three years back and moved to England, but now is back in Kuwait and working at Margherita.
Anyway, the food was great and when I go back next time I’d probably just have the soup (if it’s cold outside), one of the pizzas and the chocolate fondant. To give you a general idea about the price, the pizza’s were around KD5, the lasagna KD4, and the steak KD9. I’d definitely recommend the place. Here is a link to their [Website]
Update: I went back to Margherita on a Saturday for lunch and the place was packed and the service was horrible. Although the food was good the experience made me really dislike the place and if I was to ever go back it would not be on a weekend.
