On Saturday, I was invited along to a restaurant opening by my good friend Sarah who blogs over at Glasgow Mummy. She had been invited to try out the new restaurant and write about it on her blog and asked me to go along as her plus one.
We arrived in Royal Exchange Square to discover the new branch of Zizzi is behind GOMA in the old Borders bookshop building. It was all lit up purple and blue and looked beautiful with the fairy lights in the square. The location is ideal for a lunch when shopping or a night out in the town centre and the building is gorgeous, it's so nice that it's in use again.
There was quite a crowd outside due to the bagpipes and drums playing along the red carpet up the steps. Inside we were greeted with a glass of Prosecco and invited to look around while canapés were served. I really liked the décor - dark grey walls with the white traditional detailing and a few green touches in the booths upstairs and green bar stools. I particularly loved the illuminated tree sculptures by the kitchen.
We were seated upstairs where we had a great view over the restaurant and kitchen.
The special menu included antipasti to start followed by a couple of choices of pizza, pasta or other dishes and a selection of dessert tasters.
The calamari and dip was great but I enjoyed them all - arancini risotto balls, tomato bread & pesto, olives and parma ham. My favourite was the caramelised onion cheesy garlic bread!
For the main course Sarah had the skinny chicken pizza with salad and I had the chicken pasta which was very flavoursome with just the right amount of kick for me (I didn't eat the massive chilli on the top!) and I cleaned my plate (as much as is polite in public!) The service was friendly and surprisingly quick considering there were 160 people and we were all sat at once!
The chocolate tart was divine, not too bitter or too sweet. I'm not usually a fan of Tiramisu and wouldn't ever order it but this was actually lovely and light, the lemon tart was nice too but not amazing. I asked for a Bailey's latte but apparently they only do liqueur coffees which are Americano coffees with liqueur added which I said would be fine but our lovely waitress, Toni, went to see if they could do a latte for me and returned with the most delicious, creamy Bailey's latte for me and tea for Sarah. I really liked the coffee glass with the double wall, it looks nice but isn't impractical to hold.
The toilet, there was only one (per sex and a disabled access one) upstairs that I could tell which meant there was a queue, was also nicely decorated with information on the artists who supplied all the local art dotted around the restaurant.
We were enjoying the live band, The Jack Dames, so much we went down to the bar after dinner and met @glasgow_food (you can see her Zizzi post here) and @pieinsoup as we enjoyed some more Prosecco.
We were given a goody bag as we left which contained a bag of pasta, a recipe for the pasta, a miniature bottle of whisky and a mini bottle of Molten Brown bubble bath with some hair samples.
I've already used the pasta to make my favourite chicken pasta recipe with chilli, cherry tomatoes and olive oil...
*This is not a sponsored post but I was invited as Sarah's guest and we ate and drank as guests of Zizzi. I enjoyed myself so much, I decided I wanted to write my own review of the evening on my own blog.*
We arrived in Royal Exchange Square to discover the new branch of Zizzi is behind GOMA in the old Borders bookshop building. It was all lit up purple and blue and looked beautiful with the fairy lights in the square. The location is ideal for a lunch when shopping or a night out in the town centre and the building is gorgeous, it's so nice that it's in use again.
There was quite a crowd outside due to the bagpipes and drums playing along the red carpet up the steps. Inside we were greeted with a glass of Prosecco and invited to look around while canapés were served. I really liked the décor - dark grey walls with the white traditional detailing and a few green touches in the booths upstairs and green bar stools. I particularly loved the illuminated tree sculptures by the kitchen.
The special menu included antipasti to start followed by a couple of choices of pizza, pasta or other dishes and a selection of dessert tasters.
The calamari and dip was great but I enjoyed them all - arancini risotto balls, tomato bread & pesto, olives and parma ham. My favourite was the caramelised onion cheesy garlic bread!
The toilet, there was only one (per sex and a disabled access one) upstairs that I could tell which meant there was a queue, was also nicely decorated with information on the artists who supplied all the local art dotted around the restaurant.
We were enjoying the live band, The Jack Dames, so much we went down to the bar after dinner and met @glasgow_food (you can see her Zizzi post here) and @pieinsoup as we enjoyed some more Prosecco.
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| Quite a lot of Prosecco was enjoyed (not just by us!) |
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| Staff dancing to the band at the end of the night |
The glasses hanging at the bar were a little low for us tall girls -
apparently this is going to be adjusted so you can see the bar staff!
We were given a goody bag as we left which contained a bag of pasta, a recipe for the pasta, a miniature bottle of whisky and a mini bottle of Molten Brown bubble bath with some hair samples.
I've already used the pasta to make my favourite chicken pasta recipe with chilli, cherry tomatoes and olive oil...
Zizzi at Royal Exchange Square opened on Monday 11th February and I will certainly be going back with Nik to try some other tasty choices off the full menu. I would say that as an Italian restaurant, the food was as expected (and done well) but other than that and the flaming pizza oven, there wasn't much Italian about it. That's actually one of the things I like about it as there are so many Italian restaurants and they're always pretty similar in terms of style, this one is different. I can't comment price-wise as we didn't see the normal menu but having been to Zizzi's in Princes Square recently, we tend to only go when there are 2 for 1 or other offers on.
1 comment:
Mmmmmmm reading this is making me hungry! We'll need to meet here for lunch soon it looks fab :) xx
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