FOOD & DRINK RECENT OPENINGS
SUPPORTED BY
BIG ITALY
The charm of Italian restaurants is hard to resist when they get the ingredients right, suggests Kevin Scott
T he Finnieston Strip may be a growing social hub but until now it hasn’t been the right part of town for Italian food. The Crolla family, which owns the long-loved Little Italy on Byres Road, have opened a bar/restaurant that feels as though it has travelled across the Mediterranean and up the Clyde on a gondola. Contemporary in design, with bar stools sweeping round a tight room and a mezzanine reached from a spiral staircase, the feeling is intimate, yet the place bursts with Italian flair. This is largely thanks to charming and attentive staff who are happy to discuss the lengthy list of meats and cheeses in a pick’n’mix antipasti selection that is ideal snacking fare, particularly accompanied by one of 30-plus wines by the glass. The menu stands out by not being dominated by pizza and pasta, with dishes such as succulent scallops on a bed of chorizo and spinach, or a trio of burgers including a jucily sweet pork and apricot standing out. It’s early days for Panevino, but Remo Crolla’s vision of Veronian dining Glasgow-style feels authentic, and has an appeal that should get many of the city’s Italian fans heading to a new part of town.
PANEVINO
1075 Argyle Street, West End, Glasgow, G3 8LZ 0141 221 1136, panevino.co.uk
Ave. price two-course meal: £7.50 (set lunch) / £14 (dinner)
The best of the new restaurant, café and bar openings in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Prices shown are for an average two-course meal for one.
Glasgow BRUTTI COMPADRES BISTROS & BRASSERIES
3 Virginia Court, Merchant City, G1 1TS, 552 1777, brutticompadres.com, £15 (lunch/dinner)
Brutti Compadres is located in the newly redeveloped, and as-yet undiscovered, Virginia Galleries. Its cool, laid- back, European demeanour is similar to sister venue Brutti Ma Buoni, with tapas/ small plates of informal bites which are most agreeable when kept simple. Little home-made pizzas have crisp crusts and chewy middles, while pasta dishes are great value, from seared tuna, farfalle and dill (with pleasing hints of butter, citrus and the sea), through to lasagne packed with a light bolognese sauce.
INN DEEP BARS & PUBS
445 Great Western Road, West End, G12 8HH, 357 1075, inndeep.com, £7.95 (set lunch) / £12 (dinner) Replacing the Big Blue, Inn Deep pinches one of the West End’s most picturesque spots, inside an archway beneath Kelvinbridge opening onto the riverbank. The décor is fundamentally unchanged from the Big Blue, but for a lick of black and white paint, while the rather uninspired anything-goes pub grub menu isn’t particularly different. That said, this is a beer pub above
all, and Williams’ suite of fine brews is fully represented alongside guest casks from other UK microbrewers.
LOLA AND LIVVY’S CAFÉS
254 Argyle Street, City Centre, G2 8DL, 258 0161, lolaandlivvys.co.uk, £5.50 (lunch/dinner) The Hielanman’s Umbrella is a small black hole beneath Glasgow Central’s railway lines that exists in a permanent state of diesel-fumed night – hardly the spot to sell Greek food that should rightly be accompanied by bright sun and a faint waft of ouzo. Unperturbed by this, owner Ed Avdiasi has set up confident that his homely approach – the café is named after his wife and daughter – will tempt discerning snackers. The chat is cheery and the soup ‘n’ sandwiches are decent if limited, with three daily specials including at least one Greek dish such as spanakopita or moussaka.
Edinburgh THREE BIRDS RESTAURANT BISTROS & BRASSERIES
3-5 Viewforth, Bruntsfield, EH10 4JD, 229 3252, threebirds.co.uk, £9.50 (set lunch) / £19 (dinner) If it’s an enviable luxury to have great dining options right on your doorstep, then be jealous of the residents of Bruntsfield. With some former Howies staff at the helm, Three Birds mixes bistro intuition with a contemporary instinct for unfussy dishes and local sourcing. A concise menu is supplemented by some engaging specials including a lip-tingling mackerel escabeche and merlot-spiked goats cheese risotto with beetroot that’s bursting with flavour. Service is well judged throughout and although the decently priced wine list is short, each is served by the glass.
ROAMIN’ NOSE CAFÉ-BISTRO
14 Eyre Place, New Town, EH3 5EP, 629 3135, theroaminnose.com, £8 (lunch) / £11 (dinner)
On first glance the menu in this neighbourhood venue is conventional enough with a restrained, quality- over-quantity array of coffees and teas, home-made cakes, soups and sandwiches. Delve deeper and more character is revealed, in particular antipasti selections and mains that betray the Italian roots of chef Stefano Agostini, with home-cooked pastas such as fettuccine dello scapolo (stewed onions and parmigiano). Open both daytime and evening, the Italian love of an aperitif also peeks out in a short drinks list, while the venue itself offers a relaxed home-from-home with solid wooden furniture, clean off-white walls and bare stone.
BREWLAB ARTISAN COFFEE BAR CAFÉ
6–8 South College Street, Old Town, EH8 9AA, 662 8963, rewlabcoffee.co.uk, £8 (lunch)
This carefully plotted new entry in the café scene is half chemistry lab, half tumbledown student squat. Coffee geekery is the latest trend in a market ready to move on from branded buckets of frothy milk, and so Dave Law and Tom Hyde’s operation pays full attention to the source, characteristics and handling of beans, as well as the brewing process, with in-house options ranging from a state-of-the-art Slayer espresso maker to Chemex and v60 filter brewers. Food is smart too, with Union of Genius soups, Lovecrumbs cakes, a daily salad and sourdough bread sandwiches. The decor’s not just bare brick but bare lathe, plaster and joists too, but the smart student set don’t blink an eye, sipping and surfing from an array of low-slung leather sofas, sharing tables and perching stools.
Independent write-ups on all the restaurants worth knowing about in Glasgow and Edinburgh are available on our online Eating & Drinking Guide at list.co.uk/food-and-drink 34 THE LIST 15 Nov–13 Dec 2012