Cafe Italia, Windermere

TO celebrate the official start of autumn this week, where better could there be to head than "up the Lakes", as we locals call it?

The leaves are on the turn into their red and gold glory, the lakes' waters are relatively calm after the onslaught of the tourist hordes, and the hotspots such as Bowness and Windermere are slightly less manic than during the summer months.

With a rare free midweek day coinciding with that of my best friend, the two of us headed to Windermere in search of a ladies' lunch.

Pub grub wasn't what we were looking for, so we pitched up at Cafe Italia, which is to be found on a most prominent spot in Windermere town, in the fork where the one-way system begins (or ends, depending on which way you're travelling).

Despite the tourist season winding down – and despite the fact it was a fairly dull day – the cafe was heaving. Virtually all the outside tables were taken with people having coffee or lunch, and the ground floor restaurant was also busy.

At the suggestion of one of the hordes of young members of staff, we headed up to the first floor dining area, also busy but with a couple of free tables.

Ensconced by a rather naff fake log fire stuck halfway up the wall, we ordered water and wine (how very biblical) and settled in our comfortable armchairs.

A Parma ham pizza for Sarah, and tagliatelle carbonara for me, at just under a tenner and just under £12 respectively. The place was buzzing with lots of clearly local clientele (we could tell this because we spent a good few minutes earwigging on various conversations), with a few stray tourists here and there.

All the staff (and there are lots of them), were young, cheerful, friendly and hard-working. Menus and drinks arrived quickly, and we we were barely a third of the way down our glasses of wine before our food arrived.

Sarah's pizza was excellent. A large, thin crust affair – and served on a round, white plate, hurrah! – topped with a generous amount of high quality Parma ham, with uncooked, juicy, fresh cherry tomatoes, handfuls of fresh rocket and large shavings of proper Parmesan cheese. Faultless, and very tasty.

My tagliatelle was also excellent. Served in a large bowl, with nicely al dente pasta, and a dreamily creamy sauce, stuffed with mushrooms and good quality bacon. Mine also came lavishly presented with fresh Parmesan, which melted nicely into the dish.

We both polished off the lot and declared it as good a casual Italian lunch as one could get.

The decor at Cafe Italia is city smart without being pretentious, with a nice buzzy atmosphere and good acoustics. My only complaint was that it was too hot. Autumn might be with us but it's not cold enough to justify having the heating on yet. Or maybe it was just simply that there were a lot of people packed into a relatively small space. Whatever, it was roasting.

Along with pizzas and pasta, the cafe serves light bites such as paninis and soup, coffee and cakes and, from 4pm, main meals such as salmon, sea bass and duck, all for £16.50. Wine is served by the glass and by the bottle and there is a full range of other alcoholic drinks. Puddings are all £5.25 and there are lots to choose from, albeit with a heavy emphasis on cheesecakes – including a no doubt calorie-laden profiterole cheesecake.

We chose to share a healthier-sounding (relatively – this is cheesecake we're talking about) mango and lime cheesecake, which came with a nice big dollop of local ice cream, fresh fruit and drizzle of what tasted like a mango coulis. It was hard to discern any hint of lime, but the mango top was very tasty. It was certainly no hardship to eat.

Our bill came to just over £50 – at which point I had to leg it out of the cafe and head up the street to the nearest cash point. Unusually, this is an establishment that is cash only, which took me somewhat by surprise. Quite what a busy Lake District cafe-cum-restaurant thinks it's doing by not taking cards is beyond me. No chip and pin facility? In this day and age? Bonkers.

That said, however, we both agreed our Cafe Italia lunch had been a success. Excellent food, efficient service, comfortable seats and food served on actual crockery.

By LOUISE ALLONBY

Ratings (out of five):

Food 4

Service 4

Atmosphere 4

Value 4

Pros:

Light bites to full meals

Buzzy atmosphere

Fresh ingredients

Cons:

Cash only

You might want to take a fan

Parking is challenging