This is one part of town that really has the feel of the big city.

We were heading for Julio's Italian restaurant, which lies below ground at the base of the historic White Swan hotel. Only the previous evening, the hotel had been taken over by the treasury select committee on its nationwide fact-gathering tour into the banking debacle.

With European footy on the television it would be an altogether quieter night. Or so we thought.

The restaurant used to be called Buona Sera, but according to owner Julio Sulmina, it was a name nobody remembered, so two months before his third anniversary there, he rebranded it with his own name.

Some Italian restaurants can be garish and in your face but not this one. There is nothing pretentious about this one. No young bucks spinning a line to the ladies and singing along to their operatic favourites. If anything Julio's is almost deliberately understated. And that is not a criticism.

We were welcomed and ushered to an alcove table from where it was easy to observe what was going on around us.

And there was plenty despite the televisied exploits of Liverpool and Chelsea. We counted around a dozen tables that were occupied in the hour and a half we were there, and that can't be bad midweek business these days.

It was quickly apparent why. The food is very good.

I could be picky and say the decor was a little tired, but that would skirt the main reason for being there.

The meal began with complementary home-cooked bread rolls, straight from the oven. Moreish beyond belief. A starter in themselves.

I ordered calamari fritti for my first course, not the most adventurous choice I admit, but light and leaving plenty of room for the wonderful king sized prawns in a creamy tomato and langoustine sauce that would follow.

A bright, sweet, mouth-watering dish served with crisp vegetables.

My wife had spicy prawns for her starter, which gave me a heads-up on the delight to come and for her main she chose filetto di medalioni, fillet steak cooked in a red wine sauce. It was tender, cooked exactly as she asked and tasted great.

There was only one person waiting the tables, which I later discovered was the owner himself.

And he did it with effortless ease, despite the numbers catching him out a little. Julio's father owns a restaurant in Leicester Square.

Catering is in his blood.

We started the meal with a beer, had a glass of wine to wash it down and my wife finished with a liqueur coffee.

The bill came to £58 which is not cheap, but given we had deliberately chosen from the specials board was pretty good value.

Oh, and though we didn't try them, the sweets are very reasonably priced at around £3.75 each.

Details
Name: Julio's Italian Restaurant.
Address: Princess Street, Halifax.
Telephone: Tel: 01422 349449.

Courier reviews conducted without the prior knowledge of the restaurant