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Prego is an Italian restaurant in The Westin Hotel in Pune.
Quite a fancy place, and definitely not cheap.
[Ambience / Experience]
The place is fairly large and spacious. All tables have a pair of floating candles placed at the center of the table in a bowl. All tables were of heavy wood and quite large, which is very good so that you can sit comfortably and also when the dinner plates and large serving plates are put on the dining table, the table is not congested. The place is very quiet. Perfect for romantic dinner dates.
One of the walls has a broken Grey stone texture and on this wall were placed a lot of photo frames. Photos which I forgot to have a look at, so I presume they were photos of celebrity visits.
(Something which is very trivial but still sprung to my mind was that the photos were not aligned in a straight line! something for some reason I would expect from the restaurant guys to take care of. Maybe the stoney wall made it difficult.)
At the center of the restaurant is a sofa seating arrangement, around a rather unusual "artistic figure"(I don’t have a better way to describe this).
The kitchen is a completely visible open kitchen.
There is a huge floor to ceiling wine shelf with bottles of wine stocked. Nice.
The entire restaurant is well lit.
The waiters are very courteous and nice.
On a side note, I happened to notice that the place was rather . empty and most of the guests were foreigners; residents of the hotel of course and the prices I think would keep other than elite of Pune from visiting, but that is just my opinion, hardly a fact.
[Dinner]
The variety and number of options in the menu is fairly large ans sometimes a bit confusing. Below are some of the items that I tried.
Before being served, a plate of breads and two dishes of sauces are placed. One of the sauces, the fresh tomato sauce, which is made in house by the way, was amazing.
Calzone Bomba - Awesome. Very large and filling. Tasty as well. I ordered this with replacement of ham and turkey with chicken instead. This dish was placed under the pizza list of the menu, so I was a bit surprised to see a Calzone come.When I asked about the unusual shape pizza, I was told that it was a "folded pizza" like a Calzone. This dish is fairly large so sharing it would be a good idea.I definitely recommend trying this.
Herbed Mushrooms - A side order dish of mushrooms and herbs tossed in butter.
Risotto Chicken - Also again very nicely made. Risotto rice was perfectly cooked. The chicken pieces were soft and the dish in entirety was very tasty.
[Pricing]
Risotto Chicken - Rs. 680
Calzone Bomba(Folded Pizza as they also call it - Rs. 590
1 Side dish of Mushrooms - Rs. 200
1 Fresh Lime Sode - Rs. 150
All prices are excluding taxes.
VAT at 12.50% extra on the total and a service charge of 3.09% on the bill.
Above meal was shared by 2.
Total bill was Rs. 1872.56.
I have heard from a couple of friends who visited Prego once, that if you mention to them that you are there to celebrate your anniversary you get a box of chocolates from them complimentary.
Westin is definitely not cheap. In fact it is VERY EXPENSIVE. No starters were taken and only one drink, which still led to a bill of about Rs. 900 per head. My suggestion is that you plan for Rs. 1200 per head whenever you visit. The only saving grace was that the Calzone (Pizza) was very large in size and thus sufficed for two people and so we did not feel hungry afterwards.
For great Italian, I would definitely recommend going to Prego, however, I think some financial planning is advised before you go there, especially with Petrol prices going the way they are currently!
[Contact details]
Prego - The Westin Koregaon Park address
The Westin, 36/3-B, Mundhwa Road, Ghorpadi, Koregaon Park, Pune
Telephone:- 020 67210060