Pappa Ciccia

Address: 41 Fulham High Street, London SW6 3JJ
Website: http://www.pappaciccia.com
Nearest tube station: Putney Bridge

It’s pretty unusual to find an Italian restaurant that is BYO – mainly, I guess, because there are so many good Italian wines that the restaurants want to serve. However, we’ve managed to find a couple: Anima E Cuore in Kentish Town – which we haven’t visited yet – and Pappa Ciccia, a family-run restaurant, with two branches in Fulham and one just across the river in Putney.

We visited the Fulham High Street restaurant for a bite to eat after work in September, and were lucky enough to grab the last table for an early dinner – among lots of families finishing their early dinners. As the evening went on, the family crowd disappeared and was replaced by couples and groups of friends.

Pappa Ciccia is actually a fully-licensed restaurant, which also has a BYO policy every day. The only restriction is that you can’t BYO if there are more than eight people at a table, unless booked or agreed with the restaurant.

To start, we shared a melanzane parmigiana, which was an excellent example of the dish. This is often a soggy mess in restaurants, but not this one. It was also huge – I’m not sure we’d have made it past the main courses if we’d each had a starter.

For the mains, Mrs BYO had a campagnola pizza, topped with mixed peppers and chicken breast marinated in balsamic vinegar. A delicate flavour but really tasty.

I had a mezza luna – which translates as ‘half moon’ and is so named for its shape  – but could also accurately describe its size. It was STUFFED with mozzarella, ham, mushrooms and pepperoni. It was so good that I was determined to get through it, but I had to concede defeat a few mouthfuls before the end, fearing that I wouldn’t be able to walk back to the tube otherwise…

The good thing is that if you can’t manage it all, they have takeaway boxes and are happy to box up your leftover pizzas to take home. Mrs BYO’s campagnola did her for lunch the next day.

One starter and two mains came to £50.46, including corkage of £4 per person and 12.5% service charge (which is automatically added).

There are a few corner shops on Fulham High Street for buying your booze – or why not take a bottle of nice Italian wine that you bought on holiday and have been saving for a special occasion?