A small child was getting ready to throw herself in my direction. She launched herself near the table that my date and I were occupying, but was quickly brought down to earth thanks to the leash strapped to her chest. Carluccio’s hasn’t been opened long, but already its market has found it. Nearby tables were packed with children threateningly clutching crayons. This was a family restaurant. I sighed.I’ll be honest: I don’t tend to give family restaurants much credit. I don’t have kids, so I can’t really say I appreciate them. For one thing, many of them don’t have very high food standards. As a result, I expect thoroughly average fare from any place that caters to them. However, I resolved not to let prejudice get in the way and to give Carluccio’s a fair shot at disproving my theories.Mains certainly surpassed the type of Italian fare you’d find at most chain restaurants, in that they were well prepared, but they too lacked panache. I (stupidly, my date told me) ordered ribeye, mainly because I was intrigued by the fact that the menu boasted it was grass fed. The meat was, however, measly in size and greasy in texture. On the plus side though it was cooked perfectly rare.I was starting to note a theme: the cooking technique was good, the ingredients were not. My date’s linguini frutti di mare (with shrimp and squid) satisfied in the most basic way, but fell short of riveting, probably because no flavour really came to the forefront.

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