Review: Ask Italian

Ask Italian is one of the many restaurants that line the Brayford Waterfront. Natasha Ireton-Bourke decided to go and try it out.

Having never been before, and seeing it as ‘just another Italian restaurant’, I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular in terms of food. I was proven to be very wrong.

The staff in the restaurant were friendly and extremely helpful as soon as I walked through the door. They asked us exactly where we wanted to sit and made sure we were happy with everything before we sat down. This kind of hospitality is something that is often lacking in many chain restaurants.

The menu is made up of pizzas, pastas, salads, risotto and a small selection of meat and fish dishes.

For starters I would highly recommend their garlic breads. They offer two, both as huge as each other. The garlic bread I got was the size of a pizza and was incredible.

I have always sworn by Pizza Express’ mozzarella garlic bread but this one managed to top that. First of all, the size of it was massive and it was smothered in cheese. The bread was fresh and it was the perfect starter. I would recommend sharing this though, as it is a little too big a portion for one person.

For main, I opted for one of their pastas. Their pizzas, though, are sourdough and, like the garlic bread, are massive and full of a vast range of ingredients. Along with more adventurous pizzas, they also do all the classics such as Margherita and Pepperoni.

The pasta that I chose was the Linguine Carbonara. They have recently changed their recipe for this, and it now consists of crispy pancetta in a rich creamy sauce with Pecorino, mascarpone, and Grand Padona cheeses.

After craving carbonara for a few weeks, I was really hoping that this one would live up to my expectations. It did so much more than this. The pasta was creamy and tasted exactly how I wanted it to.

Ask Italian is a restaurant I would highly recommend. The food is incredible and the staff are extremely helpful. Even when asking to take away some of our food (when they had no boxes left) they went to another restaurant to get more for us.

Food Rating: 4.5/5