Sunday Salty Sunday

Sunday in the Eating Irons house is a very turbulent affair with 2 small children who both have a passion for annoying each other as much as possible and fighting over the most inane of objects usually by 10 am myself and the author husband have usually eaten a packet of anadin extra between us and have taken to wearing ear plugs. So when the author mentioned dropping the small annoying people at their grandparents whilst we went out for a spot of lunch I was already sitting in the car honking the horn before he finished his sentence. Getting out alone without our children who we do dearly love of course is a very rare treat so I wanted to chose somewhere on my 2014 restaurant list to eat ( these are all restaurants in Belfast in which I have not yet eaten but are regarded highly) I chose Coppi which is in St Anne's Square nestled between The Mac and another restaurant called Salt.
I have wanted to go for sometime having eaten in both The Barking Dog and Il Pirata which are owned by the same team and enjoyed my experience in both restaurants enormously I felt confident we were in for a treat.

Coppi is what I would describe as an urban rustic Italian restaurant. Confused by that? Well it's décor is urban all tiles, industrial visible pipes, woody floors but the food is rustic Italian with Cichetti which are little tasting plates similar to tapas , Pizzette (small Italian pizzas) and a strong array of main dishes with an Italian theme of slow cooked meats and pasta.

We arrived at 1pm and were the only diners in the restaurant a couple of others arrived shortly afterwards but sadly the restaurant was empty and St Anne's Square had the atmosphere of a ghost town where even the ghosts had given up and gone off in search of a bit of life elsewhere.
Service was quick and friendly we were seated in a cosy booth the hubby was glad he didn't have to sit on one of the less appealing hard wooden chairs to be fair I'm sure the chair was also a bit relieved. Drinks order was quickly taken and whilst a cocktail would have went down very nicely we still had to go collect the boisterous offspring and you need all your wits about you minding those two believe me. So soft drinks it was but wait no Fanta or club orange here oh no It's blood orange san Pellegrino and very nice it was too.

And now to the food to start we ordered the meat board but sadly they did not have it so had to go for the bruschetta board which was utterly delicious. Little crisp breads with a selection of ricotta, tomato and caper , chickpea tapenade and a wonderful refreshing salad it really did hit the spot we also had some squid and some meat croquettes which were utterly divine. Now onto the mains and sadly this is where it all went a bit wrong for me I had ordered the tagliatelle carbonara and on arrival it looked gorgeous who doesn't love fresh pasta and beautiful roasted pancetta the dish however was so very very salty. Yes I am aware before you point it out that that could well be the pancetta but sadly no the pancetta was salty enough for the whole dish but it felt that the chef felt the tagliatelle needed to be cooked in salt and then salted and salted again for luck and that the sauce needed a whole tub of salt added to it. Either his taste buds were on holiday or he had prepared this dish in a salt chamber are you getting this ? This dish was Salty McSalt they could have called it Salt Surprise if I loved Salt this much I would have went to the restaurant opposite!! The hubby faired much better with a goats cheese ravioli dish he ate the lot unsurprisingly quite a bit of mine was left.

And it was going so well up to then we left sharply after that well I was a bit thirsty wasn't I?