The buzzing rue de Buci (near our hotels) is a great choice if you’re looking for a restaurant or bar to enjoy. The street is pedestrianised, allowing for large terraces on the pavement, and there’s a wide choice of style for any budget. It’s up to you whether you people watch on the street while eating your food or get a comfy seat inside, sometimes in surprisingly big spaces…

… like Dandino, which used to be called Luigi (apparently the cold interior design and so-so pizzas did not make it a success – some reviews even mentioned mice!) So, newly decked ou in red velvet and looking like a 1930s luxury liner, will Dandino avoid the mistakes that ran Luigi aground?

Looking at Dandino from the street, its small pavement terrace and mini-terrace up front (mainly for smokers in the winter, we imagine) give the impression of a petite restaurant with a tiny bar space and not much else, but looks can be deceiving.

The long corridor along the bar leads to a large back room with a glass ceiling for natural light and enough tables for at least 60 people. The retro vibe comes from the busy carpet, pleated wall fabrics and lots of velvet. It’s a warm design and the space is used to the max, i.e. the tables are very close together. More about that later…

Upon arrival we are led to our table in the large rear room. It’s Saturday night, and unluckily there are already two very marge tables of friends (at least fifteen people at each) ready to drink cocktails, shriek and perhaps eat some food.

The room isn’t completely full yet, but the noise makes conversation rather strained, and the loud music doesn’t help (later on, we would bump into the DJ, mixing live). Additionally, the tables are so small that some of our personal affairs have to be placed on a padded stool next to our table, regularly bumped into by the serving staff coming and going.

Determined to enjoy our dinner, we order our food and a glass of wine each. The shared first course is a Puglia buratta ‘with truffle’ which arrives served on a raised plate (a strange and slightly impractical choice). The wine however does not turn up, but we start anyway. The burrata could have been creamier, but is saved by the delicious crusty bread. “With truffle” turns out to be a sort of tapenade and (we’re guessing) truffle oil. For a product that the website says ‘comes straight from Italy’ we can only imagine that it was expedited by horse and cart.

There’s still no sign of the wine, but it’s time for the main course. Dandino offers a large choice of salads, cold meat selections, toasted panini sandwiches (😳), risottos and of course pizzas, including one with caviar for only 129€.

Avoiding this outlandish suggestion, we order tagliatelle with two types of salmon (cooked & cubed, and smoked & sliced) and fusilli with pesto.

The tagliatelle is cooked to just the right consistency and copiously served with a lot of very creamy sauce, a little too creamy for us. Between the cream and the quantity, we were unable to finish it all.

As for the fusilli, the portion is once again very large (double what we could have eaten), served with parmesan both grated and sliced (slight overkill), and the pasta seems a tad overcooked in places. The pesto is really good and tangy though.

Don’t worry about leaving Dandino hungry (you won’t) but more delicate stomachs may want to avoid the pasta.

Oh, and our glasses of wine finally arrive! Better late than never.

It’s time for dessert, and we have high hopes – the website says the restaurant has its own Italian pastry chef, so no excuses will be accepted!

We choose:

— a “café gourmand“, which is an espresso coffee with mini-desserts, in our case a small tiramisu (average), a fruit salade (not particularly Italian) and two macarons (super sugary, no discernible taste and once again not particularly Italian. We didn’t finish them), and

— a scoop of ice cream (not bad, but not exceptional either) which arrives prettily presented with a cone and a bowl of whipped cream.

As you have probably understood, Dandino sometimes delivers quantity over quality, the service isn’t as tight as it could be, and the noise level in the back room (on a Saturday at least) is off the charts.

It’s not all bad though – if you’re with a bunch of friends or family (with or without kids) and you’re looking for somewhere lively with something for everyone, this is a crowd-pleaser with more-or-less average prices.

We might even go back ourselves, but perhaps on a weekday, or at lunchtime, or on the terrace… That caviar pizza definitely needs tasting, right? 💸 😜

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Dandino (here) is open for lunch and dinner seven days a week

Online bookings here

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Une publication partagée par DANDINO (@dandino.paris)