Restaurant review - Romulus and Remus, Richmond

At first glance the location didn't seem very promising. The depressing end of Bridge Road isn't where I normally expect to find fine food, but there it sits, and there we were, meeting a large group of friends for a pre-Christmas lunch.

This restaurant is downstairs from the dance studio where I spend a lot of my evenings, so I was already familiar with its inside enough to know that they serve truly excellent coffee, and that their barrista is among the elite of his profession, remembering my rather unusual coffee order perfectly without prompting only the second time I went there. I'd often thought about sampling the food, but it's always so busy and I'm always so tired and in a hurry that somehow it had never happened.

The venue is quite inviting looking, decorated in a comfortable, unpretentious style that I think of as 'smart casual'. There was no difficulty in pushing tables together for our party of ten, and the waitstaff were efficient and cheerful. So far so good.

Smart casual decor

But of course, it's the food that really matters. Now I am not a regular foodie, and I don't often blog about food, nor am I in any sense a qualified gourmet. In fact, I can't stand cooking, and as soon as I've satiated my hunger, I'm not that keen about food in general. You won't find me huddled in a corner during tea breaks drooling over food porn, or watching any of these extreme cooking shows (although I must admit to a soft spot for the lovable, cuddly Gordon Ramsay).

But I do know about pizza. I've been eating pizza since I was in my teens, and that was a LONG time ago. In fact, there was a time when I spent a month without eating anything else. Yes, overbooked work commitments, story of my life. During that time, my cat learned to love pepperoni. Another story for another day.

RooRoo, a true gourmet and pizza afficionado

So, as it was a casual lunch, I decided to order pizza. Here's the description of it:

"Crying Little Caesar", topped with spicy chilli crusted salami, spiced pork sausage, roasted peppers, olives, chilli sauce and peppery rocket.

Now I have had a lot of pizza in my life, as I've mentioned, but never, ever had I eaten one as good as this. Nor one so filling! I can usually count on demolishing the whole of an individual pizza, but, sensational as this one was, I could not eat more than half of it, despite not having eaten at all that day and despite my best endeavours, which are nothing to be sneezed at. I've been known to eat an entire family size pizza on the way home from picking it up. (No, it wasn't a long drive. About ten minutes, as I recall.)

Crying Little Caesar. Nothing to cry about here, unless they were tears of joy.

So there you have it. The location might not be terribly salubrious, but it is very convenient if you're going that way. The food's to die for. The coffee's of the first rank, the staff are pleasant and know their jobs, and as if anything else were needed, the ladies' room is like something out of a movie set.

The lav.

Romulus and Remus is located at 648 Bridge Road, Richmond. Their telephone number is (03) 9429 3042, their Facebook page is HERE and their pretentious website is HERE.