Member Review by Guy Martin

One of my standard dishes ordered at an Italian restaurant or cafe is bruschetta. It's amazing the variation that comes with a bruschetta, but the benchmark for me, is a Chapelli's bruschetta. What makes it so good that when ever I sit down anywhere else to have bruschetta I'm always thinking something like, "Hmm. Not bad, but not as good as Chapelli's"? Simplicity. No prosciutto, no olives, no sun-dried peppers. Just crusty bread, ripe juicy diced tomatoes, red onion, garlic, basil, olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Now admittedly a true bruschetta is what most of us refer to as "Garlic Bread". Crusty bread, rubbed with garlic, drizzled with olive oil and then toasted. However, in my culinary universe, I will always refer to a Bruschetta as something similar to how Chapelli's makes it; which I suppose means that Chapelli's makes the definative bruschetta.

With all this talk about the starters, you probably want to know how the mains turn out. Well, I usually skip this course and go straight to the 120,000 calorie cake display, but when I have ordered the mains, the quality is usually very good, except on the odd occasion when the pasta was mal-dente.

Service is attentive and relatively friendly for Chapel Street. Another big plus, is that any time I have a hankering for a slice of that extremely esculant bruschetta or wonderfully decadent cake, I can sate myself 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As prominently displayed on the exterior signage, "We Never Close".