Dublin has some truly excellent Italian restaurants on offer, unfortunately this restaurant is not one of them. Little Caesar’s, whilst claiming some really top notch locations around Dublin city centre offers average food at average prices.

Verdict: give it a miss, 4 stars out of 10 for average food, average service, below average atmosphere, despite good location.

We had actually planned to spend our Saturday evening at the Gotham Café on Anne street just off Grafton street but when we arrived there was no room at the inn so we were shuffled off to go searching for somewhere that could contain seven of us.

I had heard good things about Little Caesar’s and was actually brought to the restaurant by a born and bred Dubliner who was keen to show our visiting Parisian friends that Dublin cuisine was up to scratch. However, but believe me, if you are out to impress by demonstrating Dublin’s culinary prowess, or just want a really beautiful Italian meal this is NOT, I repeat, NOT the place to go.

As far as Italian restaurants go it wasn’t amazing for vegetarians. On the early bird special there was just one vegetarian main on offer, penne al arrabiata and at 12.95 for starter, main and tea it would have pretty much been just as cheap to get the two separately, so on top of the average food, prices and specials were not amazing either.

Other than that, there was fairly average Italian fare on offer, there was nothing particularly inspiring on the menu, in fact it was so uninspiring that our group ended up ordering 5 margarita pizzas, a penne al arrabiatta and a ham and mushroom tagliatelle. The pizza was fine, it was more American style than Italian style, as you will be able to see the pizza base is thicker than an authentic Italian base. Unfortunately when you order a margarita pizza, as so many of our group did, it is the pizza base that makes all the difference, so it was not the best choice we could have made. Besides, I prefer Italian food to Italian-American food. If I’m going to make the effort to go out to an Italian restaurant I expect to be served top quality fare, otherwise I would rather just stay on the couch and order a higher quality pizza from Domino’s or Four Star.

Penne al arrabiatta: This dish was OK, nothing special. The problem is that ANYBODY can make decent pasta at home. There was nothing in the flavour of the sauce to distinguish it from a Tesco’s own arrabiatta and it wouldn’t actually have surprised me if the restaurant had just opened a bottle and poured it over the pasta. Even more disappointing was that the pasta was overcooked. It was flabby and fell apart into strips when I tried to pick it up with my fork. It doesn’t take a huge amount of effort to create perfect al dente pasta, in fact if you have the slightest knowledge of how to boil water and keep a timer on then you can make perfect pasta! You would think that someone who was cooking it all day every day would get it right. Apparently not.

Margarita pizza: once again the only way of describing this pizza is average. At 8.50 it was decently priced but you can definitely get better in Dublin for much the same price.

Ham and Mushroom tagliatelle: this was probably the best of all the dishes simply because the presentation was more inspiring than the others. The green red and yellow tagliatelle looked beautiful the sauce was quite nice, and the pasta did not fall apart like my penne did. If you have to go for one of the three dishes ordered that night, go for this one.

The highlight: the one thing that I was really pleased about at Little Caesar’s was that they were very generous with the parmesan cheese/Parmigianno regiano. Quite a large stainless steel holder was brought out for the seven of us and left at the table for the duration of the meal. I like to use the parmesan throughout my whole meal so I despise it when the waiter insists on serving the tiniest amount himself at the beginning of the meal. This was a definite thumbs up for the place.

Fabulous location, the Caesar’s that we went to was just off Grafton street on Balfe Street which is extremely handy as everybody knows Grafton street so it is easy to meet there and all head to the restaurant together.

The service was below average in this restaurant. When our large group of seven came in we were quickly shuffled downstairs to a dungeon-like area with low ceilings. We would have preferred to sit upstairs but when we mentioned this the waitress, who seemed to speak very little English either could not understand us or pretended she could not understand us. One thing in her favour was that she was very quick, we got our food promptly, but she placed our meals down indiscriminately, I ended up having a margarita pizza lumped in front of me when I had ordered the penne al arrabiatta so there was a bit of plate swapping before the meal could start. All in all, although prompt, the service was unfriendly and lacking.

The dungeon-like area downstairs is not that nice. I was seated right next to a speaker that was blaring very loud music which made it difficult to hear the conversation that was going on around me. Moreover, we were the only group downstairs until the very end of the meal so there was little to no atmosphere down there. If you do end up coming to this restaurant I would be firmer than we were about wanting to sit upstairs where there are windows and people to watch, although I can’t comment on how loud and intrusive the music may be up there.

Vegetarian friendly: with two vegetarians in the group I was hoping to find a bit of variation on the menu. it’s always a nice surprise to find that you have options when it comes to dishes without meat, and I don’t include asking for certain dishes to be made “without the meat” as they are almost invariably bland. Much less effort is required to make a meat dish taste good, it takes real skill to make a vegetarian dish delicious. Despite Italian cuisine being one of the few that offers a vast array of absolutely delicious vegetarian meals they were few and far between here. The only vegetarian main that was offered on the early bird menu was penne al arrabiatta and considering the price of this dish alone it was not worth getting the early bird menu as the starter and main combined would, at any hour of the day, be around the same price.

Verdict: give it a miss, visit Steps of Rome just a few paces away at the end of the street instead.