Rojanos in the Square is Paul Ainsworth’s second restaurant in the gorgeous little harbour town of Padstow in Cornwall. Unlike his Michelin starred No.6 (which I love), this is a more casual and affordable restaurant serving pizza, pasta and the like.
The place had a really fun and lively atmosphere which was helped by the sweet and charming waiting staff. On our Thursday night visit the place was packed.
The menu was vast and it all sounded rather good. To start I went for the calamari (£7.75) which was by far the best I’ve ever tasted. I love calamari but it’s rarely cooked correctly, often it’s stringy in a greasy, soggy batter but here it was quite the opposite.
Arrancini (£9.50) were rich from the truffle (there was plenty of it in there) and seriously cheesy from the buffalo mozzarella, mascarpone and parmesan, making them totally moreish. Equally satisfying was the prawn and white crab meat bruschetta (£8.50) which was humungous. The light and delicate seafood topping was exquisite.
For main, my gentleman companion went for the ‘Old Mac Dog’ (£10.95) which was basically a Cornish hot dog topped with macaroni cheese. I’m not totally convinced you could fully taste the macaroni cheese along with the spicy sausage but the overall flavour was cracking. It was served alongside some crisp, grease free onion rings which was a nice touch.
Pizzas did the job just right. The Italian (£10.95) featured a delicious blend of Parma ham, cherry tomatoes and soft boiled egg. The quattro formaggio (£12.95) was a cheese feast with gorgonzola, buffalo mozzarella, parmesan and goats’ cheese. Simple but perfect.
I opted for the bone-in rib-eye (£32) served with sweet potato fries. I would have preferred normal chips myself, there’s something a bit student-living about sweet potato fries. But that didn’t matter because of the meat, wow the meat. The quality was astounding with the perfect proportions of fat to meat. My knife cut through it like butter. Topped with a little melted garlic butter (don’t you hate it when a steak is topped with a slab of unmelted butter?) it was pure perfection.
I’m not quite sure how we found room for dessert as the portions really were big, but we did. We went for a giant ice cream sundae (£8.50) featuring gooey chocolate brownie, coconut ice cream, salted caramel ice cream, chocolate mousse, popping candy and rice crisp-crunch. If I didn’t have diabetes before that then I certainly do now!
There was very little not to love about Rojanos in the Square. The food is simple yet with the very best ingredients available and all cooked so very spot on. With enthusiastic and friendly service (everyone was so lovely) you can’t really go wrong.
9/10
