Prego Fantastico

The finest Italian dining at Amari Koh Samui's Prego restaurant.

Samui now has more eateries than Las Vegas has casinos. Although, like Vegas, quantity doesn’t always mean quality. And here’s something odd — there aren’t that many Italian ones. But the ones we’ve got are pretty damn fine! And right up there with the best is the excellent and award-winning Italian restaurant — Prego.

Everyone was just about blown away when Prego appeared back in 2003 — this was fine Italian dining in the heart of Chaweng, at a time when you could still see hippie huts along the beach… in fact when you could still actually see the beach! And guiding and shaping the kitchen and the menu was Executive Chef Marco Boscaini.

Chef Marco is still there today, and his life-long passion for crafting every manner of Italian dish has only become sharper and keener, like a much-loved kitchen knife that’s now been honed to a razor edge. As with any real aficionado, he only uses prime ingredients. From the cuts of Australian grain-fed beef, to the lamb from New Zealand and the fresh-caught seafood. And that’s not to mention the imported items like the olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, herbs, spices, cheeses and sausages, and many more.

The format of the menu itself comes as no surprise, following the traditional format of antipasti, soups, pasta dishes, meat and fish offerings, pizzas, side dishes and sweets — plus there is also an excellent children’s menu. The seafood items are a popular option, as you’d expect on an island, and the seafood platters, particularly the sea bass, salmon and lobster options, are great all-around favourites. And if you can’t pick from all the mouth-watering meat choices, head for the ‘oven-baked rack of lamb with fresh herbs, pecorino polenta and a vegetable caponata’ — your taste buds will go into overdrive!

Lesser restaurants take shortcuts, but Marco doesn’t — it has to be spot-on. And so the first task each day is to hand-roll the Tuscan pasta prior to stoking the wood-fired pizza oven. This is running all day, and that means you’ll never have to wait long for an order of pizza — the real, thin-base-crunchy-edge stuff, of course. Accept no substitute! And to tantalise you further, there’s a ‘DIY Pizza’ feature, which means you can customise your pizza with over 40 different add-ons.

Naturally, with a restaurant of this calibre, there’s a gratifying wine list. In the chilled wine-fridges toward the back part of the restaurant there are over 70 labels of both classic and New World offerings that have been carefully selected to represent a range of flavour and value.

And that brings us on to happily point out that there’s Peroni beer on draft — combined with a really exciting ‘Free Flow Peroni’ evening every Friday. But what’s outstanding here is that the tables are laid with a wide variety of tapas, you can opt for your beer in a glass or a pitcher, and it’s eat and drink as much as you want between 19:00 and 22:00 for only 990 baht.

But apart from the excellent cuisine itself, what makes dining at Prego such a pleasure is that there are a lot of unexpected thoughtful touches: the main menu items are all available in a choice of two sizes, for example. There’s a full vegetarian and gluten-free menu available — but more than this, Prego uses its own vegan cheese and cream, which means it can produce gluten-free pizzas that are just like the ‘real’ thing.

And there’s more! The first page of the menu features a range of specials that change every week — together with a monthly offering of a different selection of fine wines being promoted. Then there’s the elite touch of Ogeu, the natural and sparkling mineral water taken from deep beneath the Pyrenees; perhaps the finest and purest you can buy. And also the exclusive truffle promotion — fresh truffles from Alba, specially flown in from Italy — that is only running in November and December.

Prego is easy to find, waiting for you like a welcome friend, right next to Amari Koh Samui on the northern reach of Chaweng Beach Road, just a little way’s north of where the lake road meets the beach road.

Prego opens in the morning for a real treat: a gigantic new espresso machine producing premium coffee from a unique blend of Italian beans specially chosen by Chef Marco — unlike anything else on Samui. This can be sampled at Prego’s Italian breakfast, together with freshly baked croissants. And Prego closes at midnight.

Rob De Wet