Restaurant review | Zizzi

Where I ate:

Zizzi, Headgate, Colchester

On Friday I had my work Christmas party and we went to Zizzi, a restaurant I’d never been to. We had all made our meal choices at work a couple of weeks prior to the evening and on arrival, received a glass of prosecco (part of the package). As there was 13 of us, we had a long table, so conversation was difficult – but a good time was had by all. We also had crackers on the table and everyone wore their hat and told their rubbish joke!

What I ate:

Antipasti platter to share, followed by pollo prosciutto and vanilla pannacotta to finish

We began the evening with a couple of sharing platters – the first were two rustic boards of pizza bread: one mozzarella & caramelised onion and the other, tomato & pesto. We also had a plate of calamari, mixed cured meats and olives. I have to say I was disappointed by the calamari, which lacked flavour and was a bit chewy; but I loved the meats and olives, especially with the hot breads.

For my main course, I has chosen pollo prosciutto, which was  a chicken breast wrapped in prosciutto ham with a white wine sauce and served with Tuscan potatoes and green beans. It wasn’t memorable in the slightest and I found myself getting food envy when I saw what everyone else was eating. Mel chose the goats cheese and spinach ravioli with pine nuts, which was amazing (yep, that should have been my choice) and I tried some of Georgia’s mixed meat and bolognaise sauce calzone which was also lovely – there’s no way I could have eaten a whole one though. Luckily I seasoned my own dish which lots of pepper to give it some flavour. I didn’t eat the potatoes as they were barely roasted and boring and you can’t really go wrong with chicken!

It was all about dessert, which I ate in two mouthfuls – vanilla pannacotta with a red berry compote. I do love pannacotta though, so it was a good way to end the meal.

The wine was flowing throughout and we then went on to Slug & Lettuce and later, Hudson’s for more drinks. As I didn’t take any photos in the restaurant, here are a couple from later on...

The service wasn’t bad and you get what you pay for. I’m definitely not converted though – I’d say it’s on a similar scale to Ask or Strada and I’m not really a fan of those restaurants either. For a work Christmas meal it’s good as you can organise everything in advance and it’s all so fuss-free on the evening.