The smartest thing Ammo did was set up shop in Solana. What better place for fake Mediterranean food than a shopping center that looks like a fake Venice? Or, at least, a reconstructed Venice after some dreadful incident that caused trees to glow fluorescent and canals to swarm with giant mosquitoes.

And by just such a preposterous waterfront lies Ammo, a restaurant that seems to subscribe to the ‘why not?’ school of interior design. It’s as if the owners furnished their spot willy-nilly with an assortment of whatever they could carry back from a modern décor factory. You can imagine their craniums churning: hey, some gears would look good behind the bar. That’ll fit perfectly with the candles in dry pasta we put everywhere, and work with the ‘sounds of the ’70s’ mixtape we’ve got prepared. Oh, how could we forget lots of empty picture frames on the ceiling, with no pictures on the wall? That’ll really give a happening vibe to this place.

So as we sat there, idly digging into a squid ink pappardelle that tasted like a microwave dinner with some rocket and rubbery baby octopus thrown in, it was just so difficult to build up any enthusiasm for the place. That didn’t seem to be a problem for our servers. They were just so possessed by boyish giddiness, so eager to please when we asked them for a green bottle of bug repellent. We couldn’t tell them outright that their restaurant… well, their restaurant just sucks.

To their credit, the chefs at least managed to put some effort into making the dishes look nice. But mere appearances don’t cut it when two grilled lamb cutlets have less juice than the piece of grilled red pepper they’re served with. The same goes for our uninspiring tiramisu, with boring, not-sweet-enough mascarpone atop ‘finger-sponge’ ladyfingers doused in bitter rum.

There’s just not enough here to warrant giving them your hard-earned cash. When compared with the other Italian options in today’s Beijing, Ammo is just too easy to take pot shots at. Fire this one off into the reject pile.

Address: Units 16-17, Building 11, Solana 6 Chaoyang Gongyuan Lu, Chaoyang District 朝阳区朝阳公园路6号蓝色港湾11号楼16-17号

Source: timeoutbeijing.com