Considering I love Italian food, the last few yeas have seen me frequenting Italian restauants less and less and it's because in London, I've tried my fair share of bad ones, many of them very centrally located but serving food that tastes like it comes straight out of a jar.

It was exactly for this reason that 2 Veneti was a breath of fresh air at the end of a working week in wintery London. Right behind Oxford street, we cut through the crowds and Christmas lights to arrive at this cosy, unassuming establishment in Marylebone. The staff were full of smiles on arrival and the place was full and clearly popular.

You can choose anyting between a one course to four course menu at set prices.  I chose 3 and hubby went for 4 (though I was always going to be sharing his 4th!) Before taking our orders, we were given a small bowl of fresh olives and pickled vegetables, which made a pleasant change from the standard bread and olive oil with balsamic usually seen at Italian restaurants. 

I started off wth a primi of risotto with sausage, chestnut and pumpkin.I make risotto myself quite often so I'm always after something that's perfectly creamy and in this respect, this certainly didn't disappoint. The portion was very generous, perhaps a little too generous as I was basically full by the time the main arrived! My only complaint with this dish though was that it was just  far too salty and I'm normally someone who has a higher threshold for salt. 

As usual, hubby ordered best with a delicious fried goats cheese starter with root vegetables and a pomegranate dressing and ravioli stuffed with such tender lamb. After this selection of carb-heavy primi, we opted for fish and seafood-based mains - sea bream for the lady and frito misto for the gentleman,  a collection of battered king prawns, calamari, mullet and soft shell crab. His overall verdict was that the prawns and soft sshell crab were fabulous but he found the mullet again far too salty. My fish was cooked perfectly with spinach, shrimp and artichokes. I liked it but the goats cheese and lamb ravioli had set such a high precedent that this felt as if it was lacking a certain something in flavour.

Determined to save room for dessert, we ordered a chestnut semifreddo with pistachio sauce and a chocolate salami dessert with hazenut ice cream. The semifreddo was absolutely delicious and I loved the subtle nuttiness that came through if I'm being fussy,I'd have liked to see the presentation a little prettier. Thee hocolate salami wasn't something I had tried before, a little biscuity in nature and quite filling, the delicious hazelnut ice cream lifted the whole dish slightly.

All in all, I enjoyed the food here - the dishes that were done well were excellent and the ones that could have been improved only needed minor tweaks. Considering it is quite reasonably priced, very centrally located and serves such authentic Italian food, I was more than happy to overlook those small details and would happily return here again.

Huge thanks to Zomato for treating me to a vouher to enjoy this restaurant!