Zizzi

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• What are these?

• Average price 2 courses:
   £11 (lunch)
   £11 (evening meal)
• House wine: £11.95 per bottle

• Food served: Mon-Sat noon-11pm; Sun noon-10.30pm
• Open since: 2003
• Also offers: Vegetarian options (at least 25% of menu), Childrens portions, Childrens high chairs, Wheelchair access, Take away

The List's Eating & Drinking Guide 2008 is now in the shops.

This review is from the 2007 edition.

The two Glasgow branches of this nationwide chain offer fairly casual dining amid sleek and modern décor, with the opportunity in Princes Square to dine 'outdoors' on the mall's balcony. The West George Street branch is larger, with bright red overhead lamps, an eye-catching bar stocked artistically with an impressive selection of wines, and polite and attentive staff. Raviolotti filled with pecorino cheese, roasted pine nuts, pesto and fresh rocket is a nicely sweet-tasting starter, but the bruschetta, brightened up with marinated red and yellow cherry tomatoes, could do with being crunchier. Pizza toppings include more unusual options such as crayfish and caramelised leeks. Pasta tossed with chicken, red pesto and spring onions is made pleasantly creamy with crème fraîche - but there's too much mascarpone and not enough salmon or spinach in the calzone di pesce, which is extremely filling. The mela croccante, an Italian apple crumble, is freshly oven-baked but perhaps a little too much so: it has a very dry topping and no discernable trace of the advertised Amaretto, making it a little disappointing. Parties of up to 130 can book West George Street's private room and sample two different three-course menus for less than £20.