Va Pensiero

Angella

Friendly Italian Restaurant & Bar 21st December 2008

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Va Pensiero was occupying three shopfront windows, two for the restaurant and one for the bar, this place was lively and humming and obviously popular and a fun place to be on a Saturday night. Looking through the restaurant windows mid-evening, all tables seemed to be occupied.

Outside they have miniature trees and tables for the smokers. In the bar are a couple of armchairs and decorations. All very inviting.

When I entered the bar, the jolly man in charge greeted me enthusiastically, and when I asked if I could have a coffee he said, 'Come back any time from six a.m.!' I thought he said 6 am. That's what I like, Italian warmth. I really want to go back there. As their website says, you must book.

WEBSITE
Their website is www.vapensiero.co.uk It plays an Italian song as you churn through the pages.

Their other branches are in Finchley and Beaconsfield.

Website menu
The website menu says they have a soup of the day and changing seasonal specialities. The website shows their standard a la carte menu which includes the usual Italian favourites, starters such as melon, and three colour salad, pasta such as spinach canneloni, pizza, chicken, veal in breadcrumbs and so on.

Drinks
The website menu shows a range, from beer and wines by the glass, lots of bottles and exorbitant champagne by the bottle for celebrations.

How to remember the restaurant name
I checked the meaning of 'Va, Pensiero' on Google and good old Wikipedia gave me the answer. 'Fly, thoughts', means think nostalgically (of home). It's the opening words of a chorus from the Italian composer Verdi's opera Nabucco telling the biblical story (known in English as Nebuchanezza) of the Jewish exiles in Babylon (now Iraq) after the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem, dreaming of home in Jerusalem.

The internet writers suggest that to Italians it's a patriotic song, and has been since the late 1800s when the Italian states united, and might be used more recently by areas dreaming of breaking away, but this is disputed. Clearly 'think nostalgically' of Italy or the restaurant is what whoever chose the name must mean. Now I'll find it easier to remember the restaurant name. Va, go, as in via. Pensiero, thought, starts like the English word pensive.

Think of that puzzling apostrophe in mid-air is a comma, not necessarily a typographer's error (though the website puts an apostrophe in rose wine, instead of an acute accent). I can get over my English schoolteacher's fussiness by thinking that in some languages the comma still hangs in mid-air, presumably dating back to the days before somebody decided to use the little comma to mean two different things when in different positions.

Location
Easy to find. If you need to check a map or satnav whilst driving there, it's easy to remember that this restaurant and the others are on Radlett's main street which is Watling Street. That's the old Roman road which ran all the way from Dover to St Albans. I learned about this at school in the area. You can check out more details about the history of Watling street on the internet Britannica.

Coming downhill from Elstree, you go through darkened fields, pass a couple of old pubs with their front walls right on the road, then all the restaurants and shops are crowded along one long main street. This place, Va Pensiero, is on the right at the far end.

If, like us, you didn't book and miss out the first time, your alternatives are the Portuguese restaurant, Bukushi's (Japanese-Jewish style excellent and elegant - on the right - hard to see), an Indian, a Chinese, a pizza place, and good value Akash Indian, which I've reviewed, next door to Va Pensiero.