Address - Shinjuku-ku, Takadanobaba 1-34-14 Opening hours -Lunch and dinner Monday to Saturday Map - No Telephone - 3208-0432 Menu - In Italian and Japanese CC - OK

This is a good Italian restaurant, but more pricey than the nearby Taverna. Actually, it is considerably more expensive, but the menu changes once every while and is considerably fancier. My main gripe is that service quality is erratic. Food and wines are very good, however, if not as typical as those served at Taverna, and the cook has been the same for the past ten years, which guarantees consistency of taste. If you want something classier than Taverna, I recommend either "Il Fornello", "Il Cantuccio" or "La Granata" (see reviews), which offer more for the same money, unless you have no time or desire to go too far. In this case, you will find Il Castello behind Big Box, on the main street in front of MacDonald's. My friend Sohan, the owner of Bourbon Street, is a regular customer.

Il Castello has its own Web Site

January 2000:

Yesterday I had an excellent meal at Il Castello. The desserts especially were spectacularly good: rare and wonderful stuff very expertly prepared. I once again hated the service, though, which was as usual slow and sloppy. Twenty minutes to get your pre-prepared appetizers seem too much, and one hour to wait for a plate of spaghetti is definitely too long. The numerous staff is disorganized and fairly incompetent, but I must say that I, restless and high-strung soul that I am, was the only one to really get worked up about it.