BUON Cibo means good food in Italian. Give your restaurant that name, and you're duty bound to serve up dishes just like mama used to make.
Luckily, this restaurant knows the way to the hearts of its diners, and doesn't disappoint in the spaghetti stakes.
Buon Cibo is a little tucked away, between Rickmansworth station and its quaint but contemporary high street. The restaurant is modern and nicely done, with soft lighting and a cool mix of dark wood and beige leather.
Staff are bright, chatty and know their menu. The waitress serving my sister and me managed orders minus notepad, and reeled off specials with ease.
I was tempted by the sound of the soup to start, which today was a tomato and potato combination. Not the chunky bowl I was expecting, this was a fresh tomato soup, thickened by the addition of a little puréed potato, presented neatly and served with warm dough balls for dipping. I wasn't completely convinced by the concoction, the texture and tang wasn't quite to my taste, but it's always nice to see a menu offering an alternative to tomato and basil.
My sister started with a pretty plate of oozing mozzarella dough balls - three parcels of mild cheese, fried in a light coating of breadcrumbs, and yummy with a dab of mayonnaise.
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Main courses include enough pasta, pizza and salad to keep you interested, along with meat and fish dishes including chicken breast in Parma ham with roast potatoes and rocket, and fishcakes of salmon and tiger prawns with herb salsa and green salad.
I chose the seafood linguine, which arrived looking too beautiful to devour. Clams and mussels in their shells, prawns, and rings of calamari sat among a heap of rigid pasta, bound and just-flavoured by a light tomato sauce, but this dish was pretty standard in terms of taste. Perhaps a slightly livelier sauce would have done the trick.
My sister tried the wild mushroom risotto which, in contrast, was full of rich flavours. This was a dense and satisfying mound of firm rice in a rich mushroom sauce, scattered with fresh chives and thick-cut shavings of melting parmesan.
Her dessert was a creamy and delicious vanilla cheesecake, topped with raspberries and served on a trendy clear glass plate, and I tucked into pleasant enough scoops of chocolate and strawberry ice cream.
Buon Cibo does what it says on the tin. This is good Italian food, and a good Italian restaurant.
Buon Cibo is at 37-39 Station Road, Rickmansworth. Call 01923 770 055.
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