Pizza joint’s upper crust without the price tag
Capital restaurant the place for tasty, no-frills dining
Leith, the grungy underside of Edinburgh, has a vexed relationship with food.
It is currently home to two of the city’s Michelin-starred establishments and one of its foremost seasonal-foragedweed-and-moss eateries.
Yet very few residents are in a position to spend £35 on lunch, never mind south of three figures for dinner.
The recent influx of interesting, less formal eating places has been a long time coming. There has been a crying need for something between coffee and sandwiches and a six-course tasting menu.
I have been stalking one of them, Razzo Pizza, on Instagram. This is where sad people like me drool over plates of gnocchi 50 miles away.
Unlike many of my fantasy dinner destinations, Razzo is open on a Monday afternoon. It’s in walking distance of Old Chum’s flat. There’s free parking across the road at the Kirkgate Shopping Centre. This is what the young people mean by winning at life.
Burrata has gone from deep obscurity to menu stalwart in about 18 months. I ate around one single ball of bursting deluxe cow’s milk creaminess a year before 2018. Now it’s an almost weekly occurrence. This is a good thing.
From a professional point of view, it’s an easy way to tell if a kitchen cares about the produce it buys. Selfishly, it is just a pleasure to have in the mouth. Especially if, like here, it is matched with springy rocket, decent tomatoes and a peppery slug of olive oil.
Mozzarella has become burrata’s less alluring little sister. Here, its appeal was boosted with breadcrumbs, a dunk in the frier and a tomato sauce. The frying was on point and there was not a drop of grease to be seen. The cheese emerged in drooping strings. It was tremendous.
I would have been happy with any of the pizzas on the menu. There is a fine line between traditional and tricksy and Razzo walk it with confidence and aplomb.
There are plenty of vegetablebased options, including a handful without tomatoes. The anchovy, which has fallen from favour in many modish establishments, makes a welcome appearance. There is a four-cheese bad boy that I would have definitely ordered if I hadn’t gone into lactic overdrive with the starters.
My final choice, with speck, gorgonzola, walnuts and honey, was the most modish of a fairly restrained menu. The speck – a bacon-like variety of ham – crisped
up in the ferocious oven. It was cushioned on a pillowy base of gorgonzola and fior di latte (another variant on mozzarella). The nuts and honey made it a bit like a fancy sharing board, served on a pizza base rather than a slate. In a good way.
Old Chum, after agonising, went for the roast aubergine. I approve of Razzo’s policy of keeping vegetables separate – there is also a courgette option, and a mushroom one. So much better than a potentially nasty mix-up.
She was smitten. How, she asked with cartoon stars popping from her eyes, did they get the aubergine like that? I tasted a fragment and concluded that a hot oven, a good deal of high-quality oil and some garlic were involved. It was so good she planned to roast her own aubergine as soon as she got home.
In the time it took us to have that conversation, a couple arrived at the next table, ordered carbonara, inhaled it and left. It looked great, made with the hollow, saucesooking bucatini instead of spaghetti. We agreed not properly considering the pasta options had been a foolish oversight.
Did we make the same mistake with desserts? No, although we were struggling to find space. For that reason, the Nutella pizza is on hold for a future visit. The ricotta pistachio torta, which contained another kind of cheese, plus my beloved green nuts, came in a more manageable portion.
It was a second cousin to a trad cheesecake, with a crunchy base, fluffy main layer and then more intense green topping. To my delight it was garnished with a jammy berry sauce rather than the dreaded anaemic strawberry.
Defeated, Old Chum watched me power through the last of the slice as she sipped her latte and begged for mercy. Unlike many of
Leith’s other top restaurants, this is not the place to propose marriage or celebrate a significant birthday. There are no tablecloths, cushions or other unnecessary frills. The view of Great Junction Street is the opposite of romantic. The waitress wears jeans and brings the food but does not pop back every two minutes to check it’s all OK.
If you need all that, look elsewhere. If you just want to eat some really impressive Italian food, get on the No 22 bus with all haste.