Café Gandolfi

I had dinner last Saturday there with some friends.
The staff was really helpful and the place it’s really charming.
The meal was good, but nothing that sorprises me or that I hadn’t tasted before. So for me it’s expensive meal and also they were to slow to server us the meal and to bring us the bill based on the meal.
Hope you find this helpful!

Finally visited here after many years of never quite making it. I had a spinach, feta and ricotta pie with a full baked garlic on top. Apparently the garlic is edible but I didn’t want to scare any vampires, so I set it aside. My dining partner Dan had a huge bowl of pasta with Italian sausage. With a couple of coffees the bill came to under £30. Lovely atmosphere and really friendly staff.

Great quality food, made with regional and fresh produce. Combined with personal service and an authentic ambiance this is the place to be for a good breakfast or lunch.

on a monday lunchtime, i was looking for a place to go for lunch that was a bit special but not overly pricey. i’d just gotten my UK residency so wanted to celebrate and after a peruse of Unilocal,we settled on Café Gandolfi based on the reviews online and what others had told me.
the place is a short 5 – 10 minute walk from buchanan street to what i think is merchant city, but someone more familiar with glasgow will probably correct me. the place itself is lovely, sort of a rustic kind of chic feeling with massive wooden chairs placed randomly about the different tables. the waitress (or possibly the owner not sure) was absolutely lovely and just so friendly! she made sure we had everything with needed and always with a smile on her face. when we found out our party of two would shortly be moving to a three and then a four she quickly moved us to a bigger table with out a problem. i know that a lot of places have good service, but it’s rare that service is quite as friendly as we had at Café Gandolfi.
now onto the food, we decided against starters as after much deliberation i convinced my dining companions to order the macaroni cheese to split between the three of us as a sort of side because i wanted both that and the open pastrami sandwich. thankfully they agreed so i was able to get both dishes :) it was a good choice as the macaroni cheese (with the blue cheese and garlic breadcrumbs) was delicious but may have been a bit heavy to eat by myself. however the open pastrami sandwich with swiss cheese and mushrooms was also huge and i gave the last quarter to my dining companions to finish off. however all the food was delicious and i was sad to be so full after the meal that i couldn’t fit in dessert! i had a few spoons of my boyfriend’s dessert which was nice though. maybe next time i’ll have room for my own.
i was really impressed with Café Gandolfi and would definitely recommend it to others looking for a tasty meal. the price was fair with mains coming in around £12−15 depending on what you got and with daily specials there menu has a good variety. definitely a really good place and i can see why it’s gotten such good reviews!

John and I returned to Café Gandolfi for our 6-​month-​iversary night out a few weeks ago, despite John giving me a knowing look and mumbling «…was that not the scene of your birthday meal disaster…» …but I’m very happy to announce that it was anything but a disaster this time round!
They managed to squeeze us in last minute on a Friday night (always book in advance — this place gets craaaaazy busy at the weekends), when we arrived and were seated it was literally a bit of a squeeze to get in to the table. We were flanked by two massive tables of people tipsily pouring wine and loudly telling anecdotes. The great thing about Gandolfi though is that this kind of atmosphere just adds to the experience!
We ordered a stupidly expensive bottle of Greek red wine, which was possibly the best wine I’ve ever had (I forget the name but it was certainly tall, dark and handsome, like every good Greek should be) and ordered straight off the specials board for that evening. I had ricotta stuffed courgette flowers served with homemade chilli jam, while John went for black pudding, poached duck egg and asparagus.
We still talk about these starters from time to time with glazed-​over looks in our eyes and drool on our chins.
For main I had the biggest bowl of spaghetti with pine nuts, red peppers and nuggets of soft Gorgonzola, while John splurged on the slow-​cooked lamb shank, which cost £14 and damn well looked worth every penny. My spaghetti defeated me, however, and I had to leave almost half of it uneaten if i had any chance of fitting in a dessert. The waitress informed me as she cleared the table that you can order all the pastas in half portions (at half the price) for when you’re feeling the squeeze (both in your purse and your belt).
For dessert John had, what I can only describe as, a monolith of cheesecake, which he informed me, in between bites, was «mmmhmmmmmhhhhmmm» which I interpreted as «good, thanks». I, of course, went for the baklava. And it was everything I’d remembered it to be. Flaky, sticky, oozing with rose water and perfectly sweet against the sour Greek yoghurt. I still think about that dessert from time to time with glazed-​over eyes and drool on my chin.
Overall the service was cheerier, the food was more tasty, and the evening was much happier than my previous visit. All hail the baklava!

Visited here with my boyfriend’s parents and boyfriend. Baked sea bass was moist and good. I took the head off. The potatoes on the side were good too. The seasoning on the sea bass was good too. The garlic bread is homemade and is the best I have ever had. The 3 cheese quiche was good too. Meringue and red current worked well together. Portuguese white wine had pear tones went well with the sea bass.

Delicious meal, even at a late seating (9:30pm+). The servers were kind and knowledgable. The food inventive, delicious, with great presentation as well as attentiveness to freshness. The servers also paid attention to the fact that we’d used our cutlery early on the starter (mushroom baked on a brioche) and quickly replaced them. I had a spectacular cheese tart with ratatouille while my son had haggis, neeps, & tatties. All scrumptious. Go there and eat!

Went here for breakfast. We had a bagel ‘special’ — avacado, poached egg and smoked salmon (replaced with bacon as per my specification since I love bacon and avacado together) and french toast with maple syrup and berries. The bagel was fresh and the eggs were cooked well, runny enough to be pleasant but not enough to be a nuisance. The french toast was a nice thick slice.
The café is a nice place to sit, full of natural wood, and has nice staff. We both enjoyed breakfast. Only thing wrong with it was, as my partner declared, ‘it’s breakfast. the least exciting meal of the day’. Based on the strength of Café Gandolfi’s breakfast, we’d definitely go back for a more exciting meal of the day.

Good, local Scottish ingredients. They’re open much of the day so those of you who are jetlagged can come get food in most timezones. Good food, well-​made, and great flavor. Come here, or to their sister restaurant down the street, or to the bar upstairs.

I visit Café Gandolfi fairly regularly as i work nearby. It’s a nice relaxed atmosphere with pleasant, knowledgeable staff.
They serve ‘hard to resist’ fresh bread and butter when you arrive.
At lunchtime, I enjoy the rocket and roasted pear salad — it comes with a choice of cheeses — I always choose the gorgonzola as I have soft spot for blue cheese and it is a lovely combination with the pear.
In the evening, I have enjoyed the smoked haddie on a number of occasions which is consistently good. It is served on crushed potatoes and topped with a poached egg.
I love the steak with blue cheese. It’s the only place I have ever seen steak served this way — slices of blue cheese on the steak. Really, really nice. My only complaint is that I don’t find a consistency with the way they serve the steak. I order medium and I have been served it cooked all the way through which I would consider to be well done and on other occasions, I have been served it much more rare than I would expect for a medium steak. This aside, it has always been really nice. You order your sides separately and I can recommend the tomato salad — three different types of tomato drizzled with olive oil.
Desserts are good but not stand out for me — although I do enjoy the white chocolate and raspberry pot.
They have a nice wine list — I also like the fact that with each of their specials, they recommend a wine to match. They also have their wines of the month which are chosen by the wine club.

We came here for Weekend Breakfast and it was fabulous. I had the eggs Alba which is salmon benedict. My husband had the full scottish breakfast with stornoway black pudding. We got my daughter the French toast brioche which looked decadent! Very wonderful breakfast. The atmosphere is beautiful and reminds me a bit of Jelly Hill with all the handmade tables and chairs.
The only sad thing was they didn’t have soya for lattes.

Popped in here on a whim last night, got a table straight away (but we were 30 minutes before last orders!)
The wine selection is pleasantly varied (and affordable) and the food — oh the food!
Counter intuitively our starters were actually bigger than our mains but with the Stornoway black pudding as a starter I wasn’t going to complain — I love that stuff.
I had the lamb for mains and it was cooked beautifully and came as quite a generous portion atop a base of sweet mash.
I’m glad I managed to remember the name of this place this morning as it is somewhere I’ll be returning to time and time again.

I went here with a friend from Glasgow I met on the megabus. I told him I never had haggis in my life, he said I got just the place to take you. So we ended up going here and I tried the haggis. I was blown away for what haggis is I didn’t think it would be great but it was one of the better foods I think I have ever eaten, so don’t dismiss it because it sounds disgusting. I even tried haggis at other places after to compare nothing came close. I can’t wait to come back to Glasgow to try this haggis again!

The haggis is awesome! Would definitely recommend this place for its haggis and you might want to reserve a table here cos theyre really busy!

«Great atmosphere, service and very tasty, but nothing out of the ordinary»
We had a good dining experience at Café Gandolfi last night. As soon as we entered the atmosphere hit us — It was warm, casual and vibrant and the staff attentive and friendly. All great so far, now bring on the food and drink. I opted for the sausage and bean cassoulet to start and my wife chose the seafood tapas — Both were extremely tasty to get us in the mood, although the mussels were a tad gritty. The mains came, harissa chicken with couscous and crab linguine. Again, both were extremely tasty & perfectly cooked and I have every confidence that every dish on the menu would meet the same standard. Overall we had a good dining experience, but it’s nothing you can’t get cheaper in any of the growing number of «gastro» pubs sprouting all around. So will we be back? Maybe, but there are plenty of others to try first…
Visited April 2012
3 of 5 stars Value
4 of 5 stars Atmosphere
4 of 5 stars Service
3 of 5 stars Food

While studying abroad in Scotland I came back to this place again and again. The food is a bit pricey but definitely WAY worth it! The atmosphere was great and the staff was very friendly. I loved and devoured the pâté and literally everything that came my way. Honestly, the best restaurant in Glasgow.

Café Gandolfi (and bar gandolfi) is one of my favourite places in Glasgow. They serve traditional Scottish fayre of the highest quality. It’s not cheap but fresh, seasonal ingredients aren’t cheap.
Last one we had dinner here we shared Arbroath smokies to start & then had the chicken kiev and the pastrami open sandwich. The time before that we had the white pudding starter and then a pork chop special and fish special. It’s all delicious whatever you choose!
Nice, relaxed setting so you don’t need to dress up if you don’t want to.

This was the best meal I had in a three week visit to the UK. We had an early dinner and had seating right away. Beautiful restaurant with very friendly and helpful staff.
We oreded all over the menu and shared. Everything was great! The Cullen skink was delicious. The Scottish cheese board had 4 very generous portions of cheese served with oat cakes. We also had the smoked mackerel pâté, Abroath Smokie and an order of macaroni and cheese. We had some Scottish ales and desserts and all for a reasonable price.
We picked up the cookbook on the way out. Now I have to find smoked halibut in Toronto!
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Café Gandolfi as a great place to explore Scotish food.

Much as I love the food, on this visit I enjoyed the garlic bread and Italian meatballs and pasta, and The Portonian enjoyed a trio of pates followed by pastrami on sour dough, I also love the ambience, the original Tim Stead furniture and the iconic shoal of stainglass fish on the window. You can also watch out for the stars who may drop in.

Cullen skink. Completely at a loss for what this might be? So was I.
Turns out it’s a Scottish fish soup and it’s mighty tasty. Creamy with big hunks of white fish and potatoes (if you enjoy New England clam chowder you’ll probably like this), I credit Café Gandolfi for helping me discover it.