Fratelli Sarti - Bath Street, Glasgow - Restaurants in Glasgow | s1play.com

Taste of Italy

Review published on 13/12/2005 © Sunday Herald

Watching Jamie Oliver make his way around Italy trying to cook Italian food for Italians, I've come to the conclusion that our Essex boy chef is a slow learner. His invitees are always polite, but cannot stop themselves from putting Oliver right. Too many ingredients, not traditional enough. Italians are conservative on the food front, fiercely committed not so much to pan-Italian, as local, time-honoured dishes .

Most British people still haven't got much beyond seeing la cucina Italiana as essentially pasta and pizza. Few 'Italian' restaurants here trouble us with less known categories of Italian food that you would commonly encounter in Italy, but Glasgow's Fratelli Sarti is one noble exception.

Stepping into the buzzing basement Bath Street eaterie recently, there was an unmistakeable north Italian, Tuscan/Emilia Romagna vibe; bollito misto, carpaccio of sturgeon, pollo alla cacciatora, diaphanous San Daniele ham, hand-sliced from a still-hoofed leg, porchetta, the sustaining pasta e fagioli soup.

And as if that wasn't enough to satisfy authenticity freaks like myself, Piedmontese truffles, the ruinously priced jewel of Alba, in Piemonte. On beef carpaccio, on taglioline, in a risotto, on scrambled eggs, and not excessively priced either, given the eye-watering sums one tiny truffle commands.

Most diners seemed oblivious to these treasures, preferring to plough the pasta/pizza furrow, but I was thrilled enough not to be annoyed by the service, which was unacceptably slow and generally harassed. It took an hour to get two starters, but they were good.

The thin, pink beef carpaccio was sweet and velvety, the Parmesan fresh and grainy, the rocket peppery. It was seasoned ably with emollient, grassy olive oil and rough salt and pepper. The truffle, however, was underwhelming, mildly nutty, not pungent and fungal, almost not worth it until you tasted the oil, which seemed to have captured the scent. It lingered in the mouth. On warm egg-rich spaghettone, clearly of artisan provenance, amid lots of butter and Parmesan, the truffle was, again, irritatingly mute, offering the odd tantalising aroma of truffle.

The bollito, the traditional mix of cheaper cuts of boiled meats, was nearly very good. There was sweet, flavoursome flank of beef with its fat still on, a rather uninspiring chicken leg, great gelatinous cotechino sausage and another fennel-scented sausage. The accompanying lentils were plainly cooked to a fault: a hint of celery, carrot or onion would have enlivened them. The bollito came with mostarda-candied sweet fruits, as it should be. But it really missed the also-customary salsa verde which is served to freshen up this dish. The other main course, porchetta, was a travesty. This should be lean pork seasoned with fennel then wrapped in pork belly and spit-roasted. Instead there were two slices of hammy, neutral pork in an odd orange glaze.

We had to try the house tiramisu - made on the premises. It turned out to be much better than most that bear that name, but it was dominated by the infusion of what tasted like quadruple-strength espresso coffee, thus obliterating the more delicate dairy flavour of mascarpone or the fruitiness of the Marsala. A ricotta cheesecake with alpine strawberries looked too regular to be home-made, but tasted surprisingly good, with the lightness and freshness of the curd likeably encased between thin pan de Spagna sponge layers.

I really admire the pluck of the Fratelli Sarti for importing items such as truffle from Italy and trying to put on our plate less ubiquitous, more typical Italian delights. Eating here is frustrating, however, so close to being good, but not always good enough. An Oliver-style focus group of plain speaking Italians might work wonders and give this restaurant the focus it needs.

© Sunday Herald