They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
I’m more in the ‘get your own bloomin’ ideas, pal’, camp.
When I saw that this place was opening, I was stoked. I genuinely thought the Glasgow restaurant, Sugo, which is owned by the people behind west coast pizza restaurant Paesano, was coming to the Capital. The branding and concept was so similar that my brain short-wired when it came to the actual name.
We spread the word. My husband’s Sicilian colleague was ebullient. He couldn’t wait.
Then we did a double take. Oops. Our mistake.
Anyway, I still thought I’d pay it a visit, though they’d got my hackles up. Everyone wants a restaurant to be ’authentic’, even if that’s just an expertly cultivated illusion. If you think someone has cynically copied a successful formula, that idea is shattered.
But, you know, maybe it’s all an accident. They’re not identical, after all.
Unlike Sugo, Ragu, which is owned by the people behind Salerno Pizza at St James Quarter, has got someone making pasta in the window, as if George Street is a wholesome version of Amsterdam’s De Wallen.
They also haven’t gone for a communal seating arrangement.
That’s a point in their favour, as I’m not into being the meat in a stranger sandwich. We bagged a comfortable green leatherette booth, in this vaguely industrial space, with pop playing in the background, and the retina-searing bare filament style lighting that I detest.
In common with Sugo, they offer 10 numbered pasta dishes, each with its place of origin in brackets. I opted for numero eight (Tuscany).
It was a good plateful of al dente mafaldine pieces, with frilled edges like the wings of a cuttlefish, so the sweet tomato sugo and burly beef ragu could cling to every serrated curve. They’d grated plenty of pecorino on top.
All this carb started to endear me to this place, especially as everyone on staff is so lovely.
My eldest niece went for the numero nine - the fettuccine, which came with soft clods of lightly spicy pork rib ragu (£12). You’ll never finish that, I told her, but she mopped it all up, with the help of a side dish of pale yellow EVOO-saturated focaccia (£4). She is an eating machine, and I am so very proud.
As far as sides go, choose from panzanella (£5.25), marinated olives (£4), a meat plate (£7, for mortadella, coppa and spicy spianata), and other nibbles.
We tried the rocket and parmesan salad, pickled red onions and balsamic (£4.50), which was a fresh and peppery foil to the heavier dishes.
These included their extremely luxuriant tonnarelli carbonara (£12). The ivory eggy sauce clung sexily to every pasta thread, like Chanel No 5 on Marilyn Monroe. There was a handful of crisp guanciale nibs in the mix, and a feathery grating of pecorino Romano on top.
Simple. As it should be.
We also enjoyed the linguine with mussels (£11), though there were only three bivalves on top of the huge pasta portion, which also featured a garlic and parsley imbued sugo. I think that’s a bit tight. I’d say six is the bare minimum per dish, if you really want to make friends and influence people.
The pudding choices aren’t going to surprise anyone. They’ve kept it classic.
Choose from an affogato (£6), soft serve with your choice of sauce (£4.50), tiramisu (£5.50) or cannolo (£5.50). We went for the last two, and they were both fine. The large cube of chocolate-dusted tiramisu was high on cream and fluffy sponge, but low on coffee, and the cannolo, stuffed with ricotta, was pleasingly chewy and crunchy, with decorative crumbled pistachio and grated dark chocolate sprinkles.
We wished we’d ordered soft serve, since it might have slipped down easier.
So, this place isn’t as good as Sugo, as I think their pasta has the edge, but it IS worth a visit.
Thus, the moral of the story is, if you’re going to copy someone - if, indeed, that’s what happened, I may be completely mistaken - you might be forgiven if you manage to do it well.
