La Storia - hit and miss Italian Restaurant

It often seems to me that every other restaurant that one visits is Italian - there apparently exists a large portion of the South African restaurant going population that would be personally offended to arrive at a restaurant and discover that it offers neither pizza nor pasta. In popular imagination, Italy must be a magical place, draped in red and white checks where the penne arrabiata is bottomless, and the margherita pizza is free for kids every Tuesday.

So, when I read the menu at La Storia in Westville, I got a little excited. Yes there were the inevitable pages devoted to pizza and pasta, but alongside these stalwarts, some less obvious dishes made their appearance, including a whole section on risottos, and some locally inspired meals like the prawns Mozambique.

On our first visit to La Storia, we dropped in late after work and so settled for a simple order of pizzas and beer. I had the Tandoori chicken. The first thing I noticed, was that the pizzas are not round, but shaped into a rough oblong and sliced into rustic triangles. The crust is heftier than most wood fired artisanal pizzas, and bready, but in a good way, with a hint of yeast and with charred and blackened spots straight out of the oven. The topping of fantastic, fragrant tandoori chicken, interspersed with dhania yoghurt and scattered with mint leaves was a welcome change from chain restaurant standards, and overall, I was impressed.

On a second visit we took a little time and ventured further into the menu. The tomato salad was fresh and tasty. Simple ingredients, elegantly brought together, it made for a good starter, together with the antipasti board with home cured meats, pickles and bruschetta.

Next, with nervous anticipation, I ordered a risotto main course. Risotto, I believe, is not a difficult dish to make. It is, however, a slow dish to create. There are no shortcuts over the stove to achieve the perfect, oozing, glutinous and magical mouth feel of a good risotto. Which is probably why, every time I've ordered it at restaurants I have been disappointed. Almost without fail, restaurant risotto is undercooked, with a raw center of hard starch lurking in every grain.

My selection was prepared with calamari, chorizo, black olive and chili. The portion was reasonably large, without being generous, but a large proportion of the volume went to the toppings. I struggled to pull together a full forkful of rice to test, but when I did, was dismayed to discover that true to type it was under cooked, and over salted. The calamari and chorizo were tasty, but anyone would be hard pressed to make chorizo taste bad. Overall, the dish was a let down.

Happily, the desert went some way to rectifying the situation - a delicious affogato, three scoops of home made icecream, with a shot of hot, bitter esspresso.

With its laid back decor of mismatched chairs and tables, its friendly, noisy interior and its impressive pizza oven, La Storia feels like the kind of place that you could hang out at on a fairly regular basis. The old faithfuls are well rendered, and the more inventive options, even if they aren't quite there, are at least on the menu. Inconsistent, but you're more likely to leave pleased than peeved.

Not the same old Storia.