The best restaurants serving Italian food in Aspley and Woburn Central Bedfordshire East of England

Edit March 2025: Sorry to echo another recent review, this place has gone downhill massively and stil expensive. Not sure if a change in owners, managers but seems like it. We used to love Fratellis and have been customers for 5 years, we had our first date here, became a favourite of ours and even got engaged here as it held special romantic memories. The food used to be good, the service impeccable. Now, we visited today and it was a world apart from what I remember. The staff clearly fairly new and inexperienced, although nice but we were sat at a table which was tiny for 4 people and right next to the bar which means you can overhear staff conversations awkwardly, plus it's used as a walkway for all people and it's not a nice place to sit. The food quality, taste, ingredients are all worse and the chefs which I'm sure have probably changed a few times over the years are no where near as good as they used to be. The garlic dough balls, were a favourite, today they were completely different to how they used to be. Much much fewer of them, completely different shape, consistency being rock hard and had no garlic to them, served with a butter that just have looked at garlic no taste at all. Just a basic mini bread roll. They used to ooze garlic, soft to the touch and uniformly round with lots more on the plate. The calamari, soggy not crisp or crunchy coating and very rubbery to eat. The carbonara, today was drenched in cream, completely different to how it used to be, far too much. The Pizzas were almost burnt, far too many black spots from the oven, all I could taste was burnt dough. For the ingredients added to the top, it was essentially tasteless except the burnt bits. Still hugely costly, roughly £110+ and they include a 10% service charge, which is so wrong especially on tables of fewer people. Sorry to say, but after 5 years, we won't be returning to what was once a highlight and special place to dine at. Everything felt like costs have been cut at the expense of quality and experience, these high prices can not be justified by such poor food. So sad to see another once great restaurant fall by the wayside. Original 2020: Lovely restaurant, came on a date with my lady friend and we both loved it. The food is wonderful, authentic and delicious. We had the best dough balls and pizza I've had outside of italy here! The staff are attentive and genuinely caring, the prices are very reasonable for the quality of evening you'll enjoy. We even had drinks bought for us by a lovely older gentleman at the table next to us, who happened to be a co-owner or investor in Fratelli, we was kind and enjoyed having people have a great time in the establishment. Very cosy and almost feels like a private dining experience the way the layout is done, the only reason it's not 5* review is that parking is limited as it's in an old village. However there is parking on the street outside, usually best if you're not going on a friday or Saturday night I'd imagine

There used to be lots of great restaurants in south/ central Beds but over the last 10 years or so they've dwingled down to a number of pretty average ones serving food no better than a microwaved take away on a plate. Well we'd heard good things about the Thai at Woburn and the ambience seemed good so booked a table for Thursday before Valentines day. I'd asked for a quiet table as we often find restaurants so noisy these days and we weren't disappointed when we were shown to a pleasant table in the RHS room which was empty . So full marks for the welcome and heeding our request. We opted for the more expensive set meal for 2 (£26 each). It came pretty quickly, a little too quickly really as we wanted a leisurely meal and time to talk. First course we opted for the pancakes and crispy duck. Six pancakes and barely enough duck which certainly wasn't crispy but otherwise OK. The main course arrived hot on it's heals, boiled rice, veg in thai sauce, chicken red curry, beef strips in black bean sauce, sweet and sour prawns with pineapple in sweet sauce. The plates were cold and as it was a chilly evening and the room wasn't too warm so the food was not very hot to start with and in fact fairly cold by the time we finished. The sweet prawns were quite nice but there were only two each, and the chicken curry didn't scale any great culinary heights. We'd had a similar Thai kit curry from Sainsburys the week previously costing a fraction of the cost and not much inferior to what the Woburn Thai managed. So to summarise. Venue and friendly waitress service very good, Prices average but would have preferred to have had better quality food, preparation and quanty and paid more. Quality of food -poor, felt like the ingredients had come out of the fridge and only made acquaintance with the spices very briefly in the microwave before being served. I've had far better take aways. Service much too fast for what we wanted, no condiments on the table or offered at all. Plates cold and no hot plates to keep food warm.

Nice Gavi, lovely garden and great staff!