Gusto

Gusto. Hmm.
See, the problem is that Gusto has played host to some great evenings, or shall we say, has made an appearance during some great nights.
While they had their 50% off the food bill deal on during January, the Amigos and I decided to come to catch-​up after a long time apart over the «Festive Season» and have some good, Italian food.
Now, I shan’t be going into how much I love the outside and the inside and the classy feel t this place, nor will I go into the drinks. This is purely about the service and the food. I love how well dressed people are in this place.
The menu is extensive and has quite a number of different dishes to choose from. What I will say is that I LOVE that there are two options of plate sizes to order from («starter» and normal portion size). When we eventually made up our minds of what to order we had: Gusto Dough Petals with garlic butter (definitely not what I expected them to be, but the garlic butter is DIVINE), garlic pizza bread with mozzarella which was exceptionally flavourless unless you bit down on one of the cloves of garlic on the ‘pizza’ and the deep fried calamari, which were alright. Just everything about the starters was very loveless and just a little uninspired. I know that we ordered quite a number of dishes but that shouldn’t mean that the table should be too small to put all the plates on.
As our mains we ordered the tagliatelle with prawns and garlic, the smoked salmon and dill tagliatelle, the oven baked lasagne, and a confit of duck and pistachio rigatoni dish, which doesn’t seem to be on the menu anymore as well as the Grana Padano risotto with pancetta. Now, it was me who ordered small versions of both the lasagne and the duck pasta dish, and I was left majorly underwhelmed by both. I cannot believe that the duck pasta dish was a small size because we even asked whether they had taken the correct orders — the portion is HUGE. The lasagne is on the small side, but honestly, I wouldn’t have wanted more of it either. It was very dry, had hardly any sauce or comfort factor. The little bit of sauce that it did have was nice but could have done with a dash of pepper. Honestly, there is no surprise that that duck dish is not on the menu anymore. The rigatoni felt under cooked, and had no anything, the duck was soggy and the skin wobbly and was more shredded than anything, but the meat was decent, and the pistachios didn’t really add anything to the menu. It really wasn’t to my liking but I did feel bad letting quite a bit go back. I did mention this to the waitress and showed her the bits of uncrispy duck skin, and she proceeded to speak to the manager who came to us later to inform us that he had taken it off our menu. I really appreciated that.
The waitress, from Germany, was very nice but she did lack that all too famous German efficiency. When it came to ordering the bill, we didn’t see her for around about 30 minutes. It was painful and by the time we had paid the bill and left we were happy to be out.
All in all, I still like Gusto for the drinks (and the fact that they have the Cocktail Club which means that signature cocktails are are £4.95 all day Thursday — Sunday), and I still love how classy it feels and I like that it is a nice restaurant, but the food just left me majorly underwhelmed. Shame.

Every review on this place is like a war a peace novel
I’ll keep it brief
Get your ass in, get seated, get food, get full, get a smile on your face, get a great night and go home happy
Just do it already the foods marvelous

I’ve been wanting to try Gusto for a while now and with their 50% discount off food for the month of January, it was time to pay them a visit (or two… haha!).
The interior is beautiful and the restaurant is well laid out. The staff are all extremely friendly and seem happy to go out their way to help. The menu has a great offering of all the ‘Usual Italian Suspects’ and their dessert menu is one of the best I have seen in an Italian restaurant. Their cocktail menu… in my opinion this needs ‘tweeking’ a little. There is a lot on offer but a lot of the classic cocktails are menu (maybe they are willing to make these? I didn’t order any cocktails) and there is a really good selection of wines (they do a really nice Pinot Grigio Blush for around £20.00 which was lovely).
Both visits I ordered pretty much the same thing (sorry, but it was that delicious I have no regrets!) and neither time was I disappointed. The food is great and the courgette fries are something else! I had the beetroot and goats cheese salad with walnuts which was filling and delicious. For dessert, I had the chocolate hazelnut brownie with pistachio ice cream which was warm and gooey. My friend had the Nutella and mascarpone calzone which could easily have done 2 or 3 people (it didn’t say this on the menu!). It was really sweet but you never can have too much Nutella!
Even without the discount, Gusto is well priced and I would happily pay full price for a meal here. I can’t wait to go back… missing the salad already!

You know… I’m not 100% that Gusto is really all that great. I was lucky enough a while back to be invited to their opening, which was great fun. We were able to sample a bunch of their amazing cocktails and enjoy canapes as well. It was a fun night, but this experience differed substantially.
From the outside and even with the fancy décor inside, you feel like you’re surrounded by luxury and fancy drinks. Most patrons are dressed to the nines, so the three of us felt out of place with our normal clothes on just in for a bite to eat off their January 50% food menu. We were seated and ordered drinks while we looked over the menu. There are so many delicious drinks to choose from but they are quite expensive so I stuck with a cider, which still cost me £5.50. Yikes.
The menu is a bit random. There are various bread and olive snacks to choose from as well as a wide variety of starter courses. On top of that, there are loads of pizza options, some steak options and loads of salads and pasta dishes. It took us quite a while to figure out what we ordered because along with the seemingly never-​ending options for food most dishes also come in ‘starter’ sized portions, which made our decision even harder as we all wanted to try more than one thing only in starter sized portions.
We ended up ordering the calamari, the pizza bread and the dough petals for starters. None of us were really huge fans of any of the starters. The calamari was to my liking, but the others thought maybe it was a bit too chewy. The pizza bread was borderline tasteless with loads of garlic dumped on it, and I thought the dough petals were saturated slices of bread that were pretty lifeless and blah.
We waited quite some time in between courses, but that was ok as the three of us dining had a bit of catching up to do after the holidays.
For our mains, we ordered the mac and cheese, the pasta with prawns, lasagne, the pasta with duck, the salmon and dill pasta and the risotto with pancetta. I can only speak for the salmon and dill pasta and the risotto. I really enjoyed the salmon dish as it was creamy and comforting. the risotto was terribly over salted and basically tasted like chicken stock. The mushrooms and pancetta really added nothing to the dish due to it being pure salt. I will say that I tasted the pasta with the duck and while it tasted alright, Sophie K did mention how it was bland and basically full of soggy duck skin. She mentioned this to the staff and they took it off the bill. Totally unexpected but much appreciated as the dish was barely touched.
After we finished our mains, we realised it was getting quite late so we asked our server for the bill. It probably took her about 10 minutes to go away and then bring us dessert menus even though we asked for the bill. I’d say another 10 minutes went by and she came back to take our dessert order. We told her we weren’t having dessert and that we would like the bill. Embarrassed, she realised we had already asked her and went away to get the bill. I honestly felt, at that point, that time had stopped.
All in all, the service was ok, the server was nice enough, but she was really busy and everything ran a bit slow. The food was a bit on the meh side, but I’m not going to complain that much as the food bill was half off and we all spent pennies compared to if we had paid normal prices.
I feel as though I want to give this place one more shot as they do have a lot of great sounding things on their menu, but I’ll have to try and go before the 50% off food deal runs out.

Gusto has been on my must try places for some time so when a friend mentioned that they are running 50% off food in january it was a perfect time to try it.
I had emailed in advance to obtain acopy of their allergen menu and was pleased to see they offered gluten free pasta and some of the mains and side were gluten free.
The interior of the restaurant is beautiful. Lots of black and sparkly lights. There is a bar area in the middle of the restaurant.
I was seated quickly as we had booked online to take advantage of the offer and a jug of water was brought to the table.
For starter i had a starter portion of padano risotto which was perfectly sized and tasted devine. For main i had the gluten free carbonara. This was a good sized portion and was up there with my all time favourite carbonaras!
My friend had ordered a size of corgette fries and i tried one and they were amazing! I will definetly be trying these next time im in!
All good so far right? So why the 3 stars?
£4 for a diet coke is scandalous.. i didnt realise the price as i conveniently couldnt find the soft drinks prices on the menu.
A second star was deducted as i had been glutened sadly which was felt 1hr after eating.
I feel this was maybe down to cross contamination which isnt the restaurants fault as they do state this on the menu.

I got lost one night. Found myself in an area of Glasgow full of lawyers and fancy buildings. It was Bothwell street. During my wander about, I was really impressed by the look of all the restaurants and bars there, including Gusto. So when my pal Linda and I were looking for a place to get lunch I suggested we go there. The menu is mouthwatering (confit of duck with pistachio, whaaaaaat?) and I got an offer online which gave us 50% off food on Saturday lunch.
The waitress that served us was lovely, which compensated for the two mistakes she made: wrong salad brought to the table and three salads on the bill instead of one. But those were easily corrected so no biggie.
We ordered the deli board, with focaccia, lovely speck ham, prosciutto, mozzarella and smoked provola. A little smaller than expected but we weren’t that hungry so that was fine. We also ordered a side salad (the famous salad) of rocket and Parmesan. It was overall a nice wee lunch, and RIDICULOUSLY cheap. Total bill came to 11.50 pounds including drinks. What a bargain.
Love the 1920’s great gatsby feel (except the plants, I don’t care for plants). Will definitely return.

Finally got to try this place for lunch the other day. Three of us headed along having booked a table online (their booking system is easy to use) and we were seated at one of big booths which was nice.
The menu is pretty good, with lots of pizzas and pasta dishes and the usual items from the grill (steak, burger etc). My fellow diners sadly didn’t want starters (boo!) so I opted for the crab spaghetti and a side dish — fried courgette fritters which I was excited about trying.
After waiting a while for drinks I asked one of the waitresses again only to be told the drink order wasn’t on our table, she sorted it quickly though. Our food arrived pretty quickly, I don’t really remember waiting long but we were chatting away. My spaghetti dish was a good sized portion and the crab was tasty but the sauce — described on the menu as garlic, chilli and lemon — didn’t really taste of anything which was disappointing. There are no oils offered so my dish remained bland.
At least I had yummy courgette fritters to munch on… oh no wait I had very thinly sliced courgette fries! Not the same thing Gusto. They had also been covered in salt. Baaaaah.
Two stars fells too low for this place, I like the space and seating, but my meal was disappointing so not sure I’ll be rushing back.

Came here with workmates for a late lunch, there was 5 of us, the place was quiet, we ordered 2 pizzas, 3 pasta dishes and a garlic bread, took nearly an hour to arrive which was disappointing. The pizzas are very thin and crispy with sparce topping definitely better places around for this type of meal, probably will not be back

A few months ago I had the opportunity to get taken to Gusto in Edinburgh. I hadn’t really expected too much, but I have to say it was an unexpectedly pleasurable meal. So much so that I was really eagerly waiting for the one in Glasgow to open. I gave it a couple of weeks to bed in and then we went.
It looks pretty good, a mid-​range chain with contemporary fittings, lots of space and a decent terrace on the pavement to catch the sun on. Unfortunately a bunch of shouty young ‘uns were soaking up the sun and the smoke when we appeared so we skulked indoors. We were seated straight away and generally were more than happy with the service, unobtrusive but very attentive, and everything appeared rapidly.
My meatballs to start were smothered in a really rich tomato sauce, and accompanied by crisp, light ciabatta. I loved the sauce, it was super tasty, but the meatballs, well they were everything polpette should be except for being a bit tough on the outside, ie. overcooked, almost burnt. For my main I went for a pizza diavola, I love thin crust pizza, and that is exactly how they serve them here. In fact they got mine so thin by putting hardly any topping on it at all. It was certainly never going to be hot like a diavola is meant to be when you would have to measure the thickness of the sparse, spicy sausage using a micrometer. Equally there was only quite miserly-​spaced mozzarella disks and again these were barely thick enough to register as a crop mark, every mouthful confirmed more bread than flavour. Just to compound my thoughts my partner pointed out that one of her courses had appeared with a skin on it, like it had been sitting under the lamps too long. Not an experience like for example Bella Napoli in Shawlands, an award-​winning pizzeria in Naples, or even Gusto Edinburgh, and actually, frankly a con, giving so little topping on a pizza base costing over £10. If I ever went back pizza would not be on the order!

Really love the look inside this place, some pretty cool lighting in there and the outdoor area at the front would be great on a rare sunny day in Glasgow. It’s quite spacious inside too. Although it looks quite posh inside, it’s quite casual feeling too. Nice mix.
The menu is great, lots to choose from and the prices are very reasonable. We went for two different pizzas; ‘Prosciutto ham & cheese’ (cured Italian ham, mozzarella with fresh rocket leaves and Grana Padano’ and ‘The Griffin’ (roast chicken, pepperoni, sliced green chilli, roasted red onion and mozzarella). The pizzas arrived and were a bit cold. We got stuck in regardless and they were really nice. Very thin base, nice and crispy with really fresh toppings. If they were a little hotter, they would have been perfect.
For dessert, we ordered the Nutella crêpe and hazelnut and chocolate brownie with pistachio ice cream to share. I am a huge pistachio ice cream fan but this one just tasted strange. My friend tasted it too, couldn’t work out what was giving it the strange taste. The Nutella crêpe was good, nothing out of this world though. The ice cream with that was much tastier than the pistachio.
Would definitely go back to try some more of the menu and the cocktails (they looked amazing). Pretty sure they’re just finding their feet at the moment.

Had a fantastic night out with my partner and other amazing Unilocalers during Gusto’s grand opening! Great company, great cocktails and great canapés makes me a happy wee girl!
We started off the night with glasses of white wine, and delicious cocktails while listening to tunes by the live jazz band! Such a lovely atmosphere it was.
The restaurant itself is really stylish and chic. A place you would go to when you’re feeling fancy and want to dress elegant. :)
As time passed, us and the Unilocalers chit chatted and got to know more about each other over (more more more) cocktails that kept flowing endlessly. May I highlight that the cocktails are BOMB! Loved every single one that they made that night, and the selection of wine was superb! My favourite cocktail however was the one with blueberries in it (sorry for not knowing the names. We were just served cocktails with no explanation as to what they were. It was a very busy night for the staff!).
Soon after, an endless flow of canapés came out and were served to each table. I think about 3 waiters/​waitresses enjoyed serving us Unilocalers because we were so overly excited about receiving food that they just kept coming back to make us happy and laugh! We never reject food, especially good food! Impossible! ;)
Through this wonderful experience, I will definitely head back to try the food and cocktails from their main menu, because everything that we had that night was absolutely great! There’ll be an update from me soon enough!

So I was lucky enough to be asked along to the VIP opening of Gusto. Going by the invite I thought this is going to be a grand opening. When we arrived we were suprised to see how posh it was (I’m so glad I wore a dress with my trainers) I felt a little undressed but did not feel looked down at by any of the staff.
We arrived and meet up with some fellow Unilocalers. The drinks began to flow with cocktails being handed out by waiting staff. I was driving so did not get to enjoy the free drink. then came the canopies, they were beautiful to look at and tasted amazing, my favourite was the goats cheese tarts. The staff were fun and friendly, I think they liked us as we were having a laugh with them and they were soon coming straight to our table with the yummy treats.
The restraunt is classic and grand looking, with the bar in the middle. The toilets are downstairs and you get to have a nosey into the kitchen on your way past. They had a live brass band playing lots of modern classics like Beyonce which was good fun.
I will defo be visiting again to try the full menu and will be leaving the car at home so I can enjoy the cocktails.

Ate here just a few days after opening. The food was delicious and well presented. Service from Ewan was a fantastic mix of professional and Glasgow banter which made our visit and even better experience.
I had 3 courses and was definitely satisfied but did not feel overly full or uncomfortable meaning the portions were perfectly sized for me :-)
We did visit during the 40% off food offer but would happily go back and pay full price.

It is hard to know where to start to be honest. First I should give a bit of background. Thanks to Unilocal (cheers boss) I had managed to score some tickets to the Gusto VIP launch party. So this review is not based on the normal menu or a paid dining experience. It is based upon a night of endless free booze and a canapé supply that seemed to be set up to never run out.
Gusto threw everything at this night. Free beer, free wine, free prosecco and free cocktails. I love the first three usually, but I am not normally a fan of the latter, but on Thursday night I loved every one of them. Maybe the «free» part helped with the taste.
The food was good to. Loads of small canapés with every thing from salmon tarts to mushroom cakes and everything in between. For dessert there was excellent chocolate tarts. The milk choc ones were nice. The White were like they had been made by angels. It is true I had a few drinks by this point, but they really were divine!
There was a band playing and the food and drink continued to flow right up until when we left later in the nite and most likely afterwards! We had a great table on the night with some really friendly Unilocalers who made sure we all had a bloody great time.
Thanks Gusto and Unilocal!It was a brilliant night and I even managed to do a bit a celebrity spotting. Although sadly talk of the famous Glasgow Food Geek making a surprise appearance were sadly unfounded.
Ace night! I wish every Thursday evening could be like last Thursday!

Gusto popped up in the old Clydesdale Bank (it felt like overnight but maybe I just never noticed it getting worked on). Gusto is part of the Living Ventures group (Grill on the Corner, conveniently over the road from Gusto) and serves Italian food.
The restaurant is beautiful, quite similar to Grill on the Corner actually with be classy dark timber, gold finishing a and lots of mood lighting. The restaurant is split into sections so you won’t feel like you’re in a huge space even though it’s a generous-​sized restaurant. There’s a bar right in the middle which is nicely decorated with stained glass and a tasty selection of booze.
Of course, it’s Monday lunchtime so I’m not drinking. The menu has great non-​alcoholic options like coolers for £4. I opted for a mint and strawberry cooler which was absolutely lush: the barman here clearly knows what he’s doing. I’m going to have to return for cocktails!
Onto the food. I went for baked gnocchi with a side of spinach. The gnocchi had nduja through it — quite a lot actually as it was pretty spicy! Not unbearable though and overall this was a really nice dish, good portion size and perfectly baked. The spinach wasn’t quite as good and was quite watery, and some of the leaves needed their stems trimmed.
Overall I enjoyed it here a lot. The service is warm and friendly, and Holly who was looking after the area I was seated in was great and really knew her stuff. I do have to say the front of house wasn’t quite as good and seemed a little confused and unsure, but the place has just opened so that’s no big deal. All up, I was really impressed with my lunch and I’ll be back soon.