Castello, Jamaica Rd, Bermondsey

Main-street Italian eaterie where booking is the thing to do since it is very popular. Uniformed waiters and a charming and energetic maitre - elderly, dapper - who works the floor really hard. Kitchen visible over a counter top.

The order: mozzarella salad and melanzane parmagiana plus bread to start; pizza with artichoke, ham, olive, linguine punte di manzo and lasagne with a shared side salad as mains; strawberry melba and vanilla ice cream with chocolate.

I suspect everything is assembled and cooked to order as there was a suitably long wait for the courses to arrive. This is not at all tiresome as there is plenty to look at and listen too...conversations and lively behaviour from the other diners that would make one's hair curl (if one had any). Lovely presentation, particularly of seafood dishes, such as the mussels in spaghetti which were conveyed to many other tables.

Linguine was fresh and strips of beef just flashed in a pan for a few seconds to ensure tenderness inside. This dish came with a cream and wine sauce with mushroom which gave way to pepper. Egg plants in the melanzane had been very thinly sliced and charred before assembly: nicely done and something I shall try the next time I make it at home.

The bill for three, including water, coffee and four spritzers, was £63, so this really is value eating on the doorstep. The floor is tiled and there are no soft surfaces to deaden sound, so when the place is packed - it always is - the noise might be annoying.

Cappuccino count: 8/10. Very good for geezers, south London dames and learning how to say "forty fousand fevvers on a frush's froat".

Other reviews here.