Zizzi

Went for a post work catch up on Monday night with a friend. Always enjoy coming here as it’s such a beautiful space with funky décor and a friendly atmosphere.
The waiter who served us was just lovely — he was efficient, nice and made us feel very welcome — even when he knew we had a 50% off main courses promotion code to use!
The food came really quickly. I went for the pasta with chicken, mushroom, onions and Rosemary in a tomato sauce. It was fresh, well seasoned and pretty good, I was expecting a thicker sauce, it was a very light one when it came. Could have been more generous with the chicken but I say that because it was the tastiest part and could have ate loads more of it. Maybe wouldn’t be something I would pick again but that’s just because I like a richer sauce for pasta. My friend got the pasta with chicken, pesto and crème fraîche — I have had this a good few times before and it’s always yummy so had a bit of food envy there!
We finished off with some hot drinks and it was super cheap due to the promo — excellent value for money for a rainy Monday night in January :-) would recommend.

Pizzería preciosa. Céntrica e un edificio maravilloso muy bien atendida.
Buena comida a un precio asequible en un sitio precioso.
Si vais a viajar a Glasgow con niños os sacará de problemas si no quieren hamburguesas.

We were looking for a relatively quiet place to have a drink on a Friday night in Glasgow city centre when one of my friends suggested coming here. I wouldn’t have considered coming here unless we were eating but it’s actually a really great place to come for a drink. They have an area at the front of the restaurant just beside the bar where there are high tables with stools and you can just sit there and order drinks from the bar.
We ended up going for cocktails — they have a small cocktail menu but everybody found something they liked. We were perfectly happy with our drinks and then we spotted a waiter carrying a couple of pizzas and they looked so good, we had to order one to share. It was really good — lovely and thin and crispy, topped with chorizo and rocket. Served on a big chopping board with your own pizza cutter — really easy to share. The pizza was £13 and the cocktails were £6 each.
Spent a good few hours in here just having drinks and chatting — it was actually a really nice alternative to sitting in a noisy pub. Very glad my friend suggested it — will definitely be keeping that idea in my back pocket for future reference!

Just had an excellent team lunch here, taking advantage of their 50% off deal.
I went for the Rustica Mare e Monti pizza (one half — king prawns, courgette, mozzarella and crème fraîche, the other half — spicy sausage, tomato sauce, chilli and rocket). Delicious! The bases of these pizzas are nice and thin without being too crispy. The ingredients all tasted super fresh too and I love how you can watch your pizza being made and cooked in their huge pizza oven.
The interior and exterior of this place is pretty impressive, huge without actually looking empty. Really nice atmosphere.
I emailed over my order a couple of hours before, thought this was best as there was 13 of us in total. All dishes came out at the same time, piping hot, which is pretty impressive for a group of that size. There were also jugs of water and ice waiting on the table with glasses, which I always think is a nice touch. The staff were lovely and very efficient too.
The bill, including service charge, came to around £110. This was for 13 mains and 13 soft drinks (with the 50% off all main meals voucher). Can’t grumble with that!
Go here and sample the Rustica pizzas, they’re to die for. Be warned though, you may fall into a pizza induced coma afterwards… They are pretty big.
I wonder if anyone will notice me taking a nap under my desk?

Love the interior! Thats the first thing you notice & the size of the pizza oven bang smack in the centre of the room.
Hard to imagine Borders before it all got spliced and diced into Zizzi and All Saints, but they’ve done a cracking job on the interior.
Opted for a pizza, as you can see them making the dough from scratch and Fiona went for a chicken risotto. I took spicy meat and chilli off my order, to just have a pepperoni & chicken pizza. Base was beautifully light and crispy, but what a disappointment on the pepperoni front. I counted 10 ‘small’ pieces on a large pizza. When it easily could have done with double the amount — bit stingy on that front.
Risotto was tasty, but waaay over seasoned with rosemary and overpowered the dish.
Service — great. Friendly, bubbly, chatty. Just what you expect and should receive.
Whilst not blown away, it is what it is & convenient, whilst still being fresh. Just lose the rigid ‘must have 10 pieces of pepperoni’ stingy approach & I’ll come back more :-D
You gotta at least — try here! :-D

I honestly live for the day when I don’t have to sift through a menu to find the healthiest options. Until I get my act together and use my 6 month old gym pass my life is ruled by calories.
So, I was really pleased to find that the menu had healthier choices and marks to show meals under 600, which is a good start, but I can only dream of riding through the sky on a unicorn eating something as much as 600 cals! Mind you, I soon discovered you can start to work this off by walking to the loo, which is a journey and a half.
Anyway, we were having lunch and I chose the smaller wholemeal pizza with goats cheese, mozzarella and grilled veg. I asked for it without the mozzarella and, while it was really tasty, I was a bit disappointed that they seem to have not bothered substituting the cheese for more veg, so it looked a wee bit bare.
We washed it down with a lovely prosecco and later that evening came back for a meat sharing plate, which was nice to pick on with a fresh frascati.
Decaf coffee’s usually a gamble but this one was quite good. Just be careful with the nifty handle-​free cups– the liquid’s hotter than you think!
The décor is lovely, the place is light and airy and the staff are great.

I went there for a dinner with a friend of mine few days ago and it was just perfect. Wine at reasonable price and so was food. We started off with a see food plate to share and then had pizza each which were delicious. Service was really nice too. I’d recommend to anyone.

This visit did not have the wow factor for me despite the imaginative use of the space and different choices of seating. We had expected that lunch on a Saturday afternoon could prove to be a problem, however we were able to choose from just about any table. Opting for the balcony we were able to look down into the open kitchen. They do have literally stacks of highchairs and are extremely child friendly, on this visit they were allowing a young child hands on experience with the dough at the pass. I would not walk past one of our favoured Italian restaurants to return here.

We went on the launch night, so hard to comment about how it is but if it’s anything like Zizzi’s in the West End, it’ll be a winner. I loved the décor and thought they had made beautiful use of the space. Decorated with local Scottish art is always lovely to look at, and the food was spectacular. Can’t wait to go back to see how it’s going (and if it’s jam packed!)

I ate here for free as a plus one on opening night so I can’t comment on pricing as we had a special menu but this is my honest review…
The service was friendly and efficient, especially considering everyone was seated at the same time. Our food was delicious with a lovely antipasti selection to start, we enjoyed everything on the platter and found the quantity to be more than enough (but we still polished it all off!) I had the Cassareccia pollo piccante pasta which was very flavoursome with just the right amount of kick for me and not too creamy or bogged down in sauce. The wine was also very nice although I’m not sure which one I had, I just asked for red.
We had a trio of desserts for pud — lemon tart (nice but not amazing), chocolate tart (amazing — not too bitter or too sweet) and tiramisu (not something I usually like or ever order but actually very tasty and light).
I really liked the décor — modern and very different to your usual Italian style, in fact the only clue to the fact it’s Italian was the kitchen with flaming pizza oven. The walls are dark grey with the ornate detailing done white and the odd green touch in bar stools and booth seating. We were seated upstairs with a good view over the kitchen and the two interesting illuminated tree sculptures which I love! It was a bit quieter upstairs (there was a live band for opening night) and fewer tables so it was easier to have a conversation. There is a lot of local art on the walls and info about this in the toilets (of which there was only 1 each and a disabled one upstairs — not ideal as I had to queue between courses, I believe there are more downstairs).
I would definitely go back if there was an offer on (I’ve been to the other Zizzi before and only go when there’s a 2 for 1 or similar deal) as the location is great and I loved the way it’s been done up.
See more photos in my full review here

My friend just got a job here for the grand opening and this weekend, they had a «Taste of Italy» friends and family event where you got a complimentary three course meal. Of course I gladly accepted this invitation for Unilocal purposes!
Zizzi stands where Paperchase and Starbucks in the old Borders used to be, so it felt nostalgic to be back in the shop where most of my pocket money was spent as a teenager. You’re immediately greeted by a large show kitchen right in the middle of the restaurant where I can only assume they made the pizzas. We were promptly showed to our table by the door host who was really nice.
We were shown a drinks menu, I had a lovely Prosecco, friend one had a Peroni and friend two had a coke. We had a ten minute wait for starters– mine was a garlic bread pizza that would easily have fed two people. The garlic bread is tasty, the garlic isn’t too overpowering which is good!
As a main course I had Spaghetti Arabiatta, I was quite disappointed that I couldn’t get Penne Arabiatta, that would be my dish of choice in an Italian. It was quite spicy because there was N’Duja sausage mixed through it. Honestly, I’ve had better arrabiata. I left quite a bit on my plate, I felt quite full from the garlic bread. The servers were lovely, they seemed to really know what they were doing.
I had vanilla gelato for dessert and it was AMAZING. The ice cream is to die for. Its also made by an independent supplier organically!
The gripes I have with Zizzi are that, it would have been quite overpriced had we been paying, but these chain restaurants generally try to be.
I think Glasgow is already well served by Italian restaurants in all honesty, how many more do we need? I prefer more authentic Italian restaurants like La Fiorentina where it’s family run. Zizzi just feels a bit generic, I did not feel like I was in an Italian restaurant at all. Also, on the mezzanine, there is only one toilet cubicle which may prove to be a problem at busy times. Also, the seats are so uncomfortable. If I wasn’t getting my lunch for free, I would have asked to have been moved.
All in all, as a fan of Italian food, I wasn’t that impressed. You could be forgiven for thinking this was any restaurant and not an Italian. The lovely staff and the ice cream would be the only thing that would tempt me back in all honesty.