La Casalinga, Camberwell

We visited Rivoli Cinema's Gold Class on Saturday night to see The Dark Knight Rises. I love the Rivoli, its such a beautiful old cinema and the benefit of travelling that little bit further is that it is nowhere near as busy as Doncaster.

Whilst looking for a restaurant to dine in before the movie, I came upon La Casalinga. The reviews and ratings were great and after eating 'clean' most of the week, I was hanging to have a night off my diet and indulge in some beautiful Italian food.

What a charming little restaurant. We were greeted by the friendly staff and seated on a small table in the middle of the small, brightly lit front room. The walls were brightly painted and complimented by traditional Italian photos. The menu features simple, gourmet, rustic style pizzas, tasting plates and pasta dishes.

We started with the scallops wrapped in proscuitto. This was a beautiful, simple looking dish and the focus was really on making that crispy proscuitto the star of the dish. Craig and I both agreed that the scallop did not have a lot of flavour compared to the saltiness of the cured meat, but texturally it was a great match to the crispy meat and we really enjoyed these as a small starter.

We shared two medium pizzas (yes, we definitely pigged out) and they were exactly the kind of pizzas I love. Those of you who read regularly will know how much of a pizza snob I am. Thin crust, only a little cheese, just enough topping, quality ingredients... the more 'rustic' the better. These ticked all those boxes. I was pleased to see they didn't use the traditional cheese on the base and instead topped the pizzas with good quality beautiful cheeses.

One pizza was topped with gorgeous wild mushrooms and truffle oil- this was our favourite, it was absolutely delicious.

The other pizza was also really good, topped with breasola (cured scotch fillet) and truss tomatoes. The meat was really yummy though we both agreed that this needed some kind of green on it like some basil or rocket- we added some from our salad!

As a side we shared a fresh and tasty rocket, pancetta and parmesan salad which was also really good.

Overall, a really lovely experience at La Casalinga. The food was wonderful and the service just as good- attentive but not over the top, really warm and genuine. I would definitely love to go back and work my way through some of the other pizzas on offer!