This is an informal review of Spaghetti Kitchen at Select City Walk and Flavors at Defence Colony (under the Moolchand Flyover), both located in New Delhi.

Finding good Italian restaurants in Delhi is a challenge. No, I am not a connoisseur of Italian food, can hardly pronounce any Italian dish, and more often than not, forget the different shapes Pasta is available in. However, of late, I have developed this habit of experimenting with Italian food, after years of Pizza-munching.

Last week, I visited two Italian restaurants, both for the first time. The first one was Spaghetti Kitchen on 2nd October, a national holiday in India. I’d admit that I ended up dining at Spaghetti by chance. My friend and I had targeted the Food Court, but since both of us were very tired, none of us wanted to strain our limbs, so we did not opt for self-service. That left us with two options at Select City Walk. One was Saatvik and the second was Spaghetti. I had read about Spaghetti Kitchen at Select City Walk in a separate review done earlier by Malvika. Since the review was good, I decided to go with Spaghetti Kitchen.

Spaghetti Kitchen, as a restaurant, appears to be a part of a luxury hotel. Sitting inside, you get that kind of feeling. The food menu at Spaghetti is going to make you feel very un-educated if you do not eat too much of Italian food. It was a great challenge to understand the dishes and what they constituted. Finally, with some intelligence, reference to the earlier post by Malvika, and inputs from the staff at Spaghetti Kitchen, we managed to order a Veg Pizza, and I ordered a chicken dish for myself. The pizza was alright but the chicken dish was full of cheese, mashed potatoes surrounding it and appeared to be very slimy. That really put me off and in the history of my life, I left chicken, for the first time. We ordered another dish (I’ve forgot the name) and it had five cubical pieces of bread with different toppings. It was nice, but the quantity was even less than a snack, given that it cost us Rs. 400.

Spaghetti Kitchen is just alright, unless you want to impress a client or a new girlfriend and have lunch in a good ambience.

Coming to Flavors, located at Defence Colony, it is far better than Spaghetti for the food it serves and the uncomplicated food menu, where you can pronounce most names and the menu has comprehensive description of most of the listed items. So easy for the non-Italian souls such as me. My friend and I ordered a pizza apiece; it is just that we were too hungry to read pasta descriptions and other stuff. I contemplated having soup, but when you are having your lunch at 4 PM, you don’t have the patience. The pizzas were nice and filling. The ambience is very informal, and Flavors has a nice garden outside. The rates are same as Spaghetti, but Spaghetti scores in interiors which are more contemporary and up-market. For me, food matters the most and Flavors was a clear winner in that regard.

The service at Flavors is really slow. In most restaurants these days, the service is fast, but Flavors was a disappointment. It took more than 20 minutes for the pizzas to arrive, and they served Fresh Lime without ice. Flavors also has a wider choice of deserts, and most sound indulging and sinful. We ordered a chocolaty desert, with custard cream and melted chocolate. It was unsurprisingly, very filling.

All in all, I won’t mind going to Flavors again, but Spaghetti Kitchen is not my kind of place. You can try it because Malvika loved it, and she is a far better judge of food.

Next on my radar are Diva at GK and 56 in Gurgaon. Will keep you posted.