Andiamo

We have been to Andiamo, s a couple of times. Though we had fond memories of this restaurant. I believe we both had the salmon on the first visit. This time though we both had pasta dishes. I had the worst heartburn ever from the lasagna sauce. A general comment would be that I don’t think the restaurant is as good as it was when it opened. Need to try harder as the restaurant is very nice inside and makes you expect a higher standard of food for the prices they are charging.

Hmm. Andiamo, I so badly wanted this to be a 5, having heard lots about you from my parents and cousin, but in the end it’s a 4. And you’re quite lucky it is a 4 if I’m honest!
We visited here for my parents’ anniversary as my brother and I had never been before, but they’d been loads in the past. We were welcomed very warmly by the staff (who really were pretty great the whole time) and the place was pretty empty when we got there as it was around 5pm (my folks like to eat early.) I was impressed with the décor (PURPLE!) and could smell delicious food, so my hopes were high.
I skipped a starter hoping I’d manage dessert, while my Mum opted for the breaded mushrooms and them other two got the calamari, but I managed to snaffle a wee bit from everyone else’s plate. The mushrooms were delish, cannot find fault with them at all! The calamari was slightly disappointing, the batter was really light and crisp but the calamari itself was pretty rubbery and not that great.
For main, I ordered the half pizza, half pasta deal cause I love me a bit of more than one thing in a meal and I’ve got to say the pizza really was delicious! Thin and crispy, tasty cheese and delicious chicken and mushrooms on top. It’s one of the reasons there are indeed 4 stars at the top of this review. Unfortunately the spaghetti carbonara I ordered wasn’t the best, I found it to be pretty stodgy/​greasy and I was sick of it after about half of it! However, my brother scoffed his pizza and carbonara and my Dad really enjoyed his beef stroganoff. My Mum mostly enjoyed her mussels but felt that they hadn’t mixed them in with the sauce well enough, leaving some of the ones at the top a bit tasteless.
Now for the part that nearly got you a 3, Andiamo. Because you are a stone cold FIBBER. I was feeling a bit full after my dinner but when I saw that there was (supposedly) «smooth Italian hot chocolate» on the menu I decided to get that. I consider myself to be something of a hot chocolate connoisseur and I BLEEDIN LOVE Italian hot chocolate. They do an excellent one in Smile Café, it’s almost like drinking melted chocolate, it’s so creamy! *sighs*
This was nothing like that. In fact, it was blatantly Cadbury’s hot chocolate. I know this cause I’ve made it countless times and if I’d known that’s what I’d be getting I wouldn’t have bothered! Disappointed is NOT the word, let me tell you. The fresh cream they had on top wasn’t very nice either, which didn’t help.
I’d definitely come back for the pizza and the breaded mushrooms, but I don’t think I’d be rushing back — especially when Glasgow has so many Italian restaurants I’ve yet to try and have heard wonderful things about!

My first experience in Andiamo was an amazing one!
The restaurant is simply gorgeous inside — my favourite part is (strangely) the ceiling and light fittings. When you walk in, you feel like you’re part of some exclusive, luxurious club.
The staff are warm, welcoming and usher you to your table. We ordered a few cocktails to start off — I’m a French martini girl and Andiamo’s make them perfectly with fresh raspberries puréed into the drink. Beautiful.
We ordered various dishes and I sampled each one — the food is gorgeous. Full of flavour and beautifully presented. The food is of a really high quality.
All in, I’d recommend this restaurant based on my first experience as it really was faultless.

I think it’s becoming clear I’m incredibly indecisive about this restaurant. I love it and I don’t at the same time, but I’ve decided to put my review back up to a 4 star one from 3. I’ve had bad food in here, but to be fair the majority of it has been good. I’m in quite a lot because Colin works here and it’s nice to be have him as my waiter in a restaurant as well as at home har har. Don’t hit me Colin.
The food is lovely, depending on what you have. Their new Sunday night Steak and Wine for 2 for £30 is great, with lovely steak sauce choices (except from béarnaise ugh why miss out my favourite?!), and lovely house wine. I enjoy the pasta in here, but I have had better quality Italian food in a lot of other places, hence me not wanting to give 5 stars.
Since I’ve tried the Milngavie branch of the 3 part Andiamo chain, the Hamilton one just doesn’t live up, and that’s the other reason I can’t give 5 stars. The Milngavie branch was much nicer décor-​wise, the menu has a much greater choice and there’s a bar area you can have drinks at as well, which I think the Hamilton branch would benefit from having; although it would lose them seats.
I know they are currently going through a massive refurb, both décor and menu wise, and hopefully once I’m back in after everything has been finished, the final star can be achieved!

It is a very nice building, but the menu (price proportionally) is too much for what is quite generic menu choices. If I pay money for pasta, I might expect fresh pasta, ripe tomato sauce, some juicy/​smokey pancetta, some fresh olives, maybe even something far out, like a chilli — but no, generic pasta sauce, prepared quite uninterestingly with some pasta that looked like Sainsbury’s own. The wine list was limited and while the staff were very nice, I was not struck by the place.

I visited Andiamo for the first time with a friend after booking through
and I must say I will never, ever be back. We were made to feel like 2^nd class citizens from the moment we walked through the door.
We were twice asked to produce our 5pm booking confirmation and as soon as they realised we were not ordering a-​la-​carte they made it clear that they wanted rid of us as quickly as possible. If you don’t want 5pm customers at your restaurant then don’t include your restaurant in their deals!
The menu advertised a free glass of wine with our meal but what we didn’t realise was that this would be one small glass between us both! Other patrons ordered small glasses of wine and had more than double what we did so I’m not exactly sure what measure we were given…
The starter was nice. No better and no worse. The one saving grace was that my friend received free bread and butter with her soup. When that’s the best thing you can find to say about a restaurant then it’s a bad day. Our main courses were poorly presented; chicken stroganoff with savoury rice slapped on the plate with no thought as to how it looked. That too was «nice». If we hadn’t eaten very little throughout the day in preparation for a «nice meal» then I doubt we would have eaten very much.
We were in and out of the restaurant in 45 minutes simply due to the fact that we couldn’t wait to leave.
My friend’s fiancé called later that evening to complain and was subjected to the Duty Manager shouting down the phone at him, speaking over the top of him and saying he was prepared to do absolutely nothing as way of an apology for the dreadful experience we had at the restaurant. We were told to call back another day to complain to the owner.
I try out new restaurants through 5pm and if I like them I will go back, dining a-​la-​carte, and will recommend to my friends and family. This is the first time I have ever submitted a review about a restaurant but I feel so strongly about this that I want everyone to know and would never recommend this restaurant to anyone.

Attended Andiamo recently (23^rd October 2010) for my gran’s birthday. And it will be the last time I ever go there. We were a fairly large party (10 people) and it took 3 hours to serve 2 courses.
Starters were ok, nothing special for an Italian. Some of the main courses had to be sent back (cold fish dish, obviously sitting for a while; extremely tough sirloin steak; and medium-​rare fillet steak roasted within an inch of its life). The fish seemed to just be reheated, and we were told by the manager that it would be 30 – 35 minutes before new steaks would be ready (presumably to put us off sending it back). Reluctantly agreed to this. As compensation, we were offered free desserts. I had to pick a second choice however as I was informed after choosing it that they had run out of tiramasu. 40 minutes later, the desserts had still not arrived. We ended up just canceling the desserts and getting the bill.
Restaurant was not overly busy for a Saturday night, and there were plenty of staff floating about. Therefore, I feel it is a very badly managed restaurant which is not worth the money. Plenty of nice Italian restaurants out there which do much nicer food and which offer great service and great value for money.
Avoid Andiamo at all costs.

Let me start by saying this place looks beautful. Fantastic décor, and excellent ambiance. However thats where it ends. The food is bland, average, and overpriced. I have been twice. One I had steak the other I had fish, both times tasteless.
Such a waste

Andiamos is in a beautiful old building that must have been the extravagant post office back in the old days. The service was really unexpectedly superb here, we were picked up on entering and sat down on a table of our choice (given two options).
The menu was pretty extensive from start to finish, more than I would expect on an out of city restaurant. Maybe that was a silly thing to say.
I actually wasn’t hungry when I was taken out for dinner here so couldn’t muster up the appetite for the otherwise delicious things on the menu. I went for the traditional Margarita pizza, boring but I was sure to cover it in chili flakes. The pizza was nice, I like a pretty thin base and that is exactly what this was. My waiter called Hope was really kind to us and actually made us feel like we were her favourite table, although I am sure she must do this with everyone. I like the restaurant and the overall experience was great fun.

Andiamo in Hamilton has been one of our favourite restaurants. The menu is good, the servings generous, food of a high quality. That was until last visit in February 2010 when one of our party was served a lemon veal dish. The meat was off! They took the food away and offered something else, but by then we were off our food. What a shame. Get yourself up to scratch Andiamo. You charge top prices, so now up the quality and the service.

Italian cuisine has always rated high on my foodie scale. Pasta is a staple in the diet of any student, and over the years, i have learnt how to differentiate a good linguine from a bad fettuccine, so i was excited to visit Andiamo restaurant in Hamilton as i had heard only great things about it.
The exterior of the building is very grand, with steps leading up to a massive glass door and elegant bay windows. Upon entering we were immediately greeted by a very jolly Italian man, who swept us away to our seats and took our jackets. We were seated next to one of the massive windows, a great spot which allowed us to gaze out onto the street and a prime position to see all of the tables around us. The décor itself was stylish and understated, the original stone walls were adorned with modern art and candles, very high-​end and sophisticated, in keeping with the expensive feel but at the same time, being cosy and intimate. The bar area was nearby where we could see the barmen making cocktails in front of a stunning glass waterfall.
The way the table was set out just screamed elegance, the ringbindered menus were dainty and bijoux, and the list of Italian delights extensive. We ordered a bottle of house red and were offered a taste before a glass was poured (this was no JD Wetherspoons special) and a jug of iced lemon water was brought to our table to accompany dinner.
We decided to skip starters (although they looked incredibly tempting) and dive straight into the main courses. Like i said, i am a massive pasta lover, so this was a serious and baffling time for me; choosing my favourite. The pastas ranged from the simple Spaghetti Pomodoro to the more sophisticated Orecchiette con Calabrese (that one is a ‘point at and nod when ordering’ effort) and all of them were really reasonably priced. I plumped for the Linguine Gamberoni al pomodoro, which, simply put, was a flat spaghetti with tomato and basil sauce, served with marinated garlic King Prawns. This was the most expensive pasta on the menu, coming in at a very fair £10.50. I could have chosen a risotto or a pizza, or one of the mouth watering steaks that were on the menu too. There was loads of choice, but not too many to leave you perplexed. That, to me, is the sign of an established restaurant.
Watching the other patrons eating thier meals and smelling the amazing aromas only made waiting for our meals more difficult, but we were served in a very reasonable amount of time, and i couldn’t wait to tuck into my meal. The waitress who served us was very nice, asking if we had we had enough wine and water, and offering us black pepper and Parmesan to accompany our meal.
The prawns in my Linguine were absolutely massive, and delicious to boot. There were plenty of them resting in a bed of generously heaped saucy pasta peppered with cooked cherry tomatoes and slices of red chili. The side of homemade garlic bread with cheese accompanied it perfectly, and i was left feeling full, satisfied and thoroughly pleased with my pasta choice.
Desert is usually my favourite part of a meal, so i was looking forward to the sweet menu which isn’t featured in the main menu but comes in a even daintier little book brought by our waitress. I expected to see my absolute favourite treat, tiramisu, but i was disappointed when it wasn’t featured. You could have a range of deserts from fresh strawberries (admittedly for an eye watering £3.95, were these gold plated strawbs?) or hot chocolate fudge cake and ice cream, but after my belly busting main i decided to go for the sweet of the day, which was a rhubarb and strawberry tart with ice cream, figuring that the fruit in there would make up for my humongous dinner. It arrived looking very pretty on the plate, with a huge dollop of vanilla ice cream on top, and was really gorgeous to eat. The pastry was just crisp enough and the ice cream was absolutely amazing with an almost gooey, stringy, thick consistency of caramel but the unmistakable smooth velvet of vanilla. Stuff of dreams. I did have my eye on my friends chocolate fudge cake throughout however, which looked equally scrumptious.
We were left to sit and chat for a while, which made a pleasant change from the sometimes rushed exits that restaurateurs expect you to make. We were not hassled by the staff for coffee, or bills, and we finished our wine in peace, which made a massive difference to my experience. When we were ready, the bill was brought to us and we were pleasantly surprised with the £95.00 price tag that came along with it. Dinner for four people in such beautiful surroundings, with two bottles of wine and two courses each should have amounted to much more this, so we were all highly impressed with the value and quality that went along with it.
The slogan which prominently adored the inside page of the menu said ’ At Andiamo, you are only a stranger once’. With food and prices like that, i don’t plan on being a stranger for much longer!

There are plenty of eating places in Hamilton to choose from, however Andiamos should be at the top of your list — as long as you like authentic Italian food.
In comparison with the likes of DiMaggios it’s a little more expensive, but it’s true what they say — you pay for what you get and the extra pennies are worth it in this case.
From the moment you walk through the door you know you’re in a ‘good’ restaurant. The décor of the restaurant is classy and the ambiance is welcoming and relaxing. The menu offers an excellent choice so even the fussiest eaters (like me!) can be satisfied and the food is well prepared and presented and is very tasty.
The staff are also friendly and helpful — if a little slow at times. But then, who wants to be rushed when they’re enjoying their food?!
For birthdays, anniversaries or other special occasions this place is a must!

Andiamo is a small-​ish restaurant located in a lovely old building opposite the Hamilton Town Hall. The décor is very modern with a subtle mint choc chip colour scheme and stunning lights. From the moment you walk in you feel welcome and relaxed, despite this being a bit of an occasion restaurant. That said, the pricing is very reasonable, especially considering the quality of the food. Food is always well presented and you cant wait to get started. Aplace for a special event i think

I think that this place is just okay. I have eaten here on about 4 occasions and found the staff to be slow and the last time the meal was cold and had to be sent back. The surroundings are very nice, but I do thin the staff lets the place down a bit. I would try again though as sometimes things change.

The best italian restaurant i have eaten in by far! I love italian food and I am quite fond of a few different restaurants but this one is definetly the best. It is located just off the main road on the way into Hamilton town centre. The inside is lovely, lots of candles everwhere abd llight music and it has a great atmosphere.
The prices are ever so slightly more expensive than your average italian restaurant but i certainly wouldnt call it overpriced. The staff are really friendly and helpful. We only go here on special occasions such as birthday because I always think its great to have somewhere nice to go to on a special occasion!