Eating Out: Prezzo

Feb 4 2010 By Ben Spencer

Prezzo

Silverburn, www.loveprezzo.co.uk Tel: 0141 881 1467

A shopping mall may not be the first location that springs to mind when you think of where to go for an Italian meal.

Italian shoes, yes. Italian leather, sure. But surely not excellent Italian cuisine? Well, Prezzo in Glasgow's stylish Silverburn centre may help change a few minds.

My partner and I visited on a Wednesday evening and were impressed with the modern but comfortable style of the restaurant.

There are tables outside in the shopping centre but we were glad to be able to explore the interior.

Walking through the door, it was pleasant to be offered the choice of where we wanted to sit.

It's a bugbear of mine that many restaurants insist on sitting you almost on top of another diner, even when the rest of the restaurant can be empty.

Not so in Prezzo, where we chose a pleasant table overlooking the kitchen with it's impressive pizza oven - always a good sign in a restaurant offering Italian food. To start my partner chose chicken Genovese (£4.95).

This was made up of diced chicken breast with a sauce of pesto, spring onions, garlic and a touch of cream, served up with toasted focaccia bread.

The dish proved popular and had just the right amount of pesto to give it an edge.

I chose crabcakes with tartar sauce (£4.95). Often crabcakes can be a bit tasteless but these were rich and went down very well with the accompanying sauce and salad.

Despite being impressed by the large pizza oven, I'm almost embarrassed to admit that neither of us chose a pizza. Fortunately, the main dishes we plumped for didn't disappoint.

My pollo Siciliana combined chargrilled chicken breast, prosciutto ham and plum tomato slices with a blend of cheese (£10.95).

It came with gratin potatoes and was a meaty favourite But my partner probably enjoyed the pick of the mains with a generous portion of tiger prawn risotto with petits pois in a creamy saffron sauce (£9.95).

The risotto was moist and tasty and swiftly vanished from her plate.

To full to sample dessert, we instead relaxed with a coffee (£1.95) and a sweet Cadbury's hot chocolate (£1.85).

Ben Spencer