Paesan Crouch End - Menu

From the reviews of friends it sounds like this place used to be good but is sadly very average now which you'd put up with if it wasn't horrifically overpriced! £19 for a bowl of lukewarm pasta. Horrible sewagey smell downstairs and cramped upstairs not a good atmosphere. Disappointing meal out.

The downstairs bar is dirty and run-down, with a kitchen area that looks grimy and unappetizing. Upstairs, the small and basic pasta was revolting, with a sauce that tasted like it had been sitting around for days. The fried courgette was soggy but edible. The only redeeming feature was the very sweet and charming waitress. Overall, it was a dreadful meal.

Unfortunately while this was a night out to celebrate our retirement; the food let us down terribly. The starters were okay; however the mains where we had pasta with aubergine was tasteless and certainly not seasoned. I had to return my food and while the restaurant kindly provided me with an alternative, it was also quite poor in taste. A huge disappointment.

Promising setting (we sat in the outside rooftop area), nice staff, friendly service, but very disappointing food. Rather tasteless and flavourless pasta (pesto didn't taste of pesto), small portions, and the first time we've been to a pasta restaurant and not been offered parmesan but then we weren't offered salt, pepper, or anything else either. Oh, and my daughter said the toilets are definitely to be avoided.

Having grown up in Italy, I was excited to try this restaurant. The pasta was tasty and the fried zucchini starter was especially delicious. The waiters seemed a bit inexperienced but were very friendly. It took a while to get the menus, place our order, and for the food to arrive. Unfortunately, the bill was also incorrect. The prices felt a bit high for the portion sizes, but I understand that rent in Crouch End is expensive and the ingredients were of good quality. The restaurant had a trendy atmosphere, but it was a bit cramped. Overall, I enjoyed my experience but found it somewhat underwhelming and probably wouldn't return. Still worth a visit though!

Following good reviews, and that it has fresh pasta, we wanted to try this for a friends birthday. The dinner has good atmosphere and bright from the roof terrace. We did need another table as found the seating cramped with small tables. The offering on the menu starters were mostly processed meats and cheese, the crispy shreds of zucchini was ok. However it would be good to have more more choice. So we mostly ordered pasta starters followed by more pasta. The pasta starters were small. We found the best pasta was the meat ragu and parsley sauce which had a good balance. The carbonara tasted like pasta warmed up with egg yolk. All pasta plates were served with the same pasta large noodle sty...

We decided to give this restaurant another chance on New Year's Eve, but unfortunately, it was a truly terrible experience. The service was poor, as they rushed us to order without informing us that several menu items were already sold out, even when we asked for specials. The staff had no knowledge about wine either. The food was average with tiny portions, and the atmosphere was dull. At 10:15 pm, after being there for over an hour for our party of four, we were informed that the kitchen was closing and we had to order dessert immediately. When we opted for desserts, we were told that the coffee machine was broken and they had run out of tea. The staff were either rude or inexperienced. Ov...

Having already been to several other restaurants in Crouch End, we decided (on a Monday night when quite a few are closed) to try Paesan. It's a quirky place. The bulk of the seating is upstairs, with the kitchen open-plan and taking up most of the ground floor. When we arrived at 6pm just one other table was being used, but by the time we left most were occupied. The decor is rustic, as you ought to expect given the restaurant's name. The menus are on clipboards and I didn't make myself popular by removing the clip in an unfulfilled expectation of finding some non-pasta main courses. We had the antipasta misto, which was distinctly average. My wife then chose the frutti di mare: it's made w...

Excellent authentic Italian food, celebrating the best of artisan regional cooking in diverse ways. The ingredients are imported from Italy so you can really taste the difference. We started with Espresso Martini as our aperitivo and chose it with a twist; a hint of coconut it was the best one we've ever had! For small plates we had octopus carpaccio with pepper celery salad, and red golden beetroot salad with kohlrabi goats cheese. Both small plates were gorgeous and the flavours were mindblowing. We continued with bowls of fresh pasta: Norma di paesan (aubergines, stracciatella, pine nuts basil), Ragu di manzo (mafalde with slow roasted wild beef shin ragu) and Ravioli bicolore (crayfish,...