Zizzi - Loughton

A welcome and well-run chain of Italian restaurants, operational mainly in the south of England, with a good penchant for converting handsome premises from their former use, whatever that may have been.

Cuisine is traditional Italian, and none the worse for that, well prepared and sent out at prices that are, frankly, very reasonable. Starters of crayfish, smoked salmon, rocket, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and red onion with mandarin dressing sound a good note, before moving on to a pizza of marinated chicken, pepperoni, pancetta, fresh rosemary, mozzarella and tomato. Calzone (the tomato-less one) comes up with, say, calzone di pesce, oak roasted salmon, mascarpone, spinach and mozzarella.

The usual range of pasta, as dazzling as an Italian waiter's charm, awaits its fans, with the celebrated fusilli con Gorgonzola, plenty of the cheese with spinach and caramelised leeks with pinenuts in a cream sauce as popular as ever. No decent Italian menu would be complete without mussels, and there they are, in a creamy white wine and garlic sauce, as enticing as ever.

In amongst the baked dishes expect to find oven roasted chicken breast filled with prosciutto ham and mozzarella on a bed of mushroom and thyme risotto. People get so worked up about the more traditional aspects of Italian cooking that they sometimes forget this is a national cuisine with a salad named after one of its greatest leaders - the traditional Caesar salad, made here, sad to relate, without the anchovies, but I daresay they would stretch a point if you ask nicely.

I read somewhere recently that bananas are not, after all, weight inducing, so it with a semi-clear conscience, given the other ingredients, that you can go for the banana con cioccolata, a dreamy confection made with layers of caramelised banana with chocolate and toffee sauce on a Belgian waffle, served with cream or ice cream.

A brief wine list stands up well with the menu, and almost invariably service is of the cheerful, smooth variety we have come to love and expect.