Tarantino

I decided to visit this restaurant today based on the reviews on Unilocal,and it was brilliant! The food was delicious, Saturday menu was great value and the service was friendly but not intrusive. I would absolutely recommend it

Tarantino is definitely a dining delight! Sometimes you just have to splurge and Tarantino is the place to indulge in and that’s what I did!
I started out with a mixed salad, it had chopped greens, a layer of tomatoes, red onions and drizzled with balsamic vinegar, not only was this mixed salad good looking it was great tasting too!
For the main meal I went with Pollo Birra & Carciofi, which was pan roasted chicken breast with red onions, rosemary and artichokes in a sauce made from Italian handcrafted beer. Oh my! The chicken was so tender and good, the flavors of everything blended well, before I knew my meal was gone.
I knew since I was indulging I needed to keep it moving and dive into dessert, after checking out the yummy menu I went with the Tronchetto Al Cioccolato– it was an Sicilian style chocolate cake, rolled together with Italia Amaretti & cookies served with nocciolate ice cream, oh sweet bliss! Every bite was just divine!
Service was great and friendly. A truly great dinning experience, Tarantino offers creative Italian dishes.

Maybe the best Italian I have ever been to…
So I’m going to let you into a little bit of a secret, Italian food when going out to eat would not be my first choice. I find them a bit bland with bad lasagna and carbonara!
Tarantino’s is a little different to your normal Italian places, no massive bowls of pasta arribiata! Not even a single pizza on the menu but instead pasta with wild boar and fresh seafood dishes the sorta food you would expect in Italy.
So we decided to try out here before heading to a local festival (as you do) 3 course lunch and lots of red wine! I’ve changed my mind about Italian restaurants. The staff were supper friendly. I fact there was a load of extras like olives, aubergine fritters when we arrived. Then a little after dinner drink! Perfect!

So this is how Italian food is meant to be? Hold off on the piles of grated cheese and the massive bowl of sauce with some pasta swimming in it. This place brings authentic (so I’m told) Italian cuisine to Glasgow. On Saturday we dropped in for a spot of lunch and certainly got provided with a memorable Italian feast.
From the minute we arrived to when the owner was shaking my hand as we left the staff were exceptionally welcoming. I ended up having three courses, all of which were excellent. For starters I had «tortellini in brodo» which is meat filled pasta that comes in a bowl of stock and gets topped off with Parmesan cheese. It was lovely and like no other Italian dish I had ever been served before. This is not Italian food as I have known it in the past. For mains I had «pollo salitinbocca» which is basically chicken with pancetta, with veg and potatoes on the side. Very tasty dish again, but I would have liked a few more tatties. For dessert I finished off with Nutella cheesecake. It was thick and indulgent. A really great way to finish the meal. On top of this we shared a bottle of red and got several complimentary additions. Crispy courgettes, huge black and Green olives, Italian hard chilli biscuits, sun dried tomato bread and a complimentary whisky!
This is an exceptional restaurant doing Italian food in a way that a lot of people will probably not have experienced before. The staff are very welcoming and the prices are really reasonable for the quality of the food. (We had a lunch set menu, three courses for 15 quid)

You’d think Glasgow doesn’t need another Italian restaurant. But this is actually a nice addition to the Finnieston food scene — I don’t think there are many others in the area. And if only every Italian in Glasgow was as good as this.
It’s a small family-​run place that feels cosy and friendly, a bit like you’re having dinner at a friend’s house. The staff are really welcoming and keen to provide a good service. The food seems pretty authentic to me and the menu makes your mouth water just reading it — it’s not as large a selection as some other places but it’s clearly all made with quality ingredients and a lot of enthusiasm for good Italian food. I had courgette and aubergine in bechamel and parmesan for starters, then seafood risotto with squid ink. Both were fantastic but the choice was really difficult and there’s loads else on the menu I need to go back and try!
The service was great — they actually messed up and missed one of our mains off the order by mistake so it came out a little later than the others, but they spotted it, apologised, got the food out as quickly as they could and then gave us a free dessert to make up for it. And it’s that kind of recovery that highlights the difference between good and bad service so they’re still getting 5 stars.
As I’m a southsider, this place isn’t the handiest to get to, but any time I’m in the area (next night out at the SECC!) it’s definitely going to be part of the plan.

I was a little dubious when I saw restaurant opening up — after Indian and burgers, Glasgow has a load of Italian places. Located just off the Finnieston strip next to Ox & Finch, we actually tried going here last year but for some reason they were closed on a Saturday night so we went to Mother India instead.
A group of 5 of us visited for dinner last night. The restaurant is pretty small actually but not pokey — no one was seated right beside us and the music gives it a good atmosphere so you don’t feel like people are listening to your conversation.
The menu is really impressive — I pretty much wanted to eat every single dish. As Rocco G says, it’s not your usual Italian dishes on the menu and you can be a little more adventurous here (although there is a section of traditional Italian dishes which are more common in the UK like bolognese, carbonara, lasagne). There’s lots of eggplant/​aubergine (drool) and loads of delicious-​sounding seafood, as well as nod to Scottish folk with a chicken breast stuffed with haggis. There’s even a good range of vegetarian dishes.
I went for the scallops to start (£9.95) which were beautifully plump (is there any other way to describe a good scallop), served in a lovely tangy Aurum liqueur sauce. For the price I thought 3 scallops was very reasonable, and really enjoyed how perfectly they were cooked.
For main I couldn’t go past the gnocchi with king prawns in a white wine sauce (£11.95). It was a huge portion (too large, if I’m honest) but overall a really wonderful dish packed with flavour but not smothered in sauce, and really letting the puffs of gnocchi shine. There was one main large prawn (in the shell) and then smaller prawns scattered around the dish — again, for the price I thought this was really good value.
I even went for dessert (something I rarely do) as I quite fancied the tiramisu (I think around £5). Again, great sized portion, lovely presentation and had a nice boozy/​coffee kick to it. I couldn’t eat it all so they happily popped it in a container for me to take home (guess what I’m having for lunch today?!).
Service was great — we were looked after by two staff members who were both friendly and helpful. There was a mix up with the mains as one of our party didn’t receive his, and they only realised as they were bringing out our dishes. I thought the way it was handled was really nice — they offered him some bread while he waited, and then took his dessert off the bill to say sorry.
Life lesson: If Rocco G says it’s good, it’s going to be good.

Buonissimo! Fantastico! Delizioso! Yeah, check me out, I can use real Italian superlatives to express my joy with this amazing wee gem of an Italian restaurant.
I feel like I’m constantly scouring the Italian dining scene, hoping that sooner rather than later there will be something that really begins to float my boat. All too often you see the same boring dishes in the same tired Italian joints. There’s your lacklustre Spaghetti Bolognese, super calorific untraditional creamy Carbonara, unimaginative scalding hot lasagne and bizarre pasta with chicken concoctions (which don’t actually exist in Italy). Yup, I’m a man with a gripe and big chip on my shoulder when it comes to Italian nosh in this country.
Fortunately, this could be the first Italian restaurant in the West End that gets a big tick from old fussy pants over here. I visited Tarantino for lunch one Saturday afternoon, after spotting the great value 3-​course meal deal. The excellent choice of dishes available made me realise that this may not be your typical Italian restaurant. The delicious lunch was a mere £12.95, but for the quality, truly worth every penny.
My second visit came just a few days later, I thought I had to give the a la carte menu a shot. Tantalising dishes like Spaghetti with wild boar, Gnocchi with king prawns & courgette flowers and linguine with prawns and olive pesto all had me salivating before I even entered the restaurant. They also do a variety of homemade filled pastas which sounded amazing (these will have to wait for my next visit). Anyway, I opted for the linguine dish and it really was delicious. Al dente pasta, fresh prawns, cherry tomatoes and a stunning olive pesto made this one to remember.
The place itself is rather classy and chic. Its also laid back, contemporary and the service is just spot on. It really is refreshing to see that they haven’t gone down the cheesy Italian restaurant route, with the lame fake dangling garlic cloves and tacky artwork.
I usually like to round of a meal with a nice espresso and one again Tarantino triumphs again. A nice smooth, creamy espresso seals the deal in this fantastic, new 5 star establishment.