Located in the heart of Silicon Oasis, Tomato & Basilico epitomises your neighbourhood Italian eatery. The outdoors are tasteful, with its little almost vintage and green surroundings, while the indoors seating area is in the colours of the Italian flag. Fun. They’ve definitely kept the ‘Tomato & Basilico’ theme throughout the restaurant with little basil plants on the table.
We started off our lunch with the arancini with struck a right balance between cheese and the rice. Dipped in their tomato sauce, it tasted sublime.
We then ordered some drinks. I thoroughly enjoyed my cucumber mojito made fresh at the bar. The flavours were crisp and lovely. My brother ordered the Ace, which was a combination of orange, lemon and carrot juice.
For the main courses, we opted for their signature ‘Montagnola’, with mozarella at its base, along with porcini mushrooms, beef bacon, burrata and truffle oil. This pizza is really messy to eat, but was a real guilty pleasure. The truffle oil seamlessly came through and the burrata was fresh.
We also opted for a beef lasagne which came with a strawberry sweet sauce that just enhanced the flavours. Overall, it was a bit too heavy on the stomach, especially after the Montagnola. Choose one or the other to share – though try both as they are excellent dishes.
For dessert, we opted for the chocolate cake and the carrot cake. Whilst visually appealing, neither of them delivered on taste unfortunately. The carrot cake was too sludgy, whereas the chocolate cake was more a brownie than cake.
Overall though, it was an enjoyable experience with good service and budget pricing. Will definitely make it a point to drop in when I’m ever in the Dubai Silicon Oasis area. The brand is the baby of two Italian siblings who wanted to bring a piece of their home cooking to Dubai. And I think they seem to have succeeded.
DISCLOSURE: I was offered a complimentary meal in exchange for this review. However, opinions are my own.