The luxurious yet inviting interior of Amarone on St. Andrews Square, Edinburgh, means the food has a lot to live up to. And in many ways it does. For this review we sampled both the main menu and the gluten free menu and found a whole lot to love.
Thanks to our collective love for Mediterranean cuisine, Scotland is full to the brim with Italian restaurants. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it can start to feel a little like groundhog day, with each pizza merging into the last in one mozarella-laden heap. Amarone, however, manages to free itself from the deluge of homogeneity.
When we first entered the main area of the large, open plan restaurant floor - round the corner from the lavish entrance pictured above - I was struck by the elegant art deco features and light fixtures hanging from the high ceiling.
There is a great sense of not only space but also light, aided by the well-placed mirrors on the walls.
It's only natural, when finding yourself in such a place, to start with a pristine glass of Prosecco.
Despite the huge amount of tables, most of which were full even at 2 in the afternoon, the service at Amarone was fast and efficient. We had three different servers during our lunch but the communication between them was seamless and all were intensely knowledgeable of the menu.
The gluten free antipasti are few but varied and well thought out. I opted for the gluten free minestrone as, alas, the soup is usually off limits due to the inclusion of pasta.
It was exactly as a minestrone ought to be: warming, tomatoey and filled with sumptuous little nuggets of vegetables and beans. I was pleased with the generous portion of parmigiano which came with it as without this it may have been no more than a nice homey soup. When I poured the heap of sharp cheese on the top, made the whole dish into something truly delightful.
Nicer still was the gluten free brioche-style bread on the side. Bouncy and soft, and perfect for soaking up soup.
The duck liver pâté was decidedly more decadent. The orange jam and fig reduction were refreshing and bright and the dish overall was colourful and enthusiastically presented. The fig reduction in particular elevated the dish from your run of the mill pâté starter.
Our only qualm was that the hard slices of crunchy bread served with the pâté weren't sufficient to mop up the last delicious smears of fruit on the plate so we had to employ the end of the gluten free brioche.
As it should be in any good Italian restaurant, the choice of pizza toppings was eclectic. What stood out though was Amarone's selection of pizza styles available. One can choose between a traditional romana pizza base, a calzone, a pinsa (a type of light rectangular pizza with dough made via a special fermentation process), or an entirely gluten free pizza.
The pinsa capricciosona was a stand out choice. Pizza cappriciosa is a type of pizza which combines a variety of ingredients from egg and artichoke to spicy salame and meaty porcini mushrooms, all together in a satisfying concoction. Capricciosona suggests an evolution of this idea: an even more adventurous pizza than your usual capricciosa.
For the most part, it lived up to this title. The artichoke chunks were meaty and sunctuous and the salame had just the right amount of spice.
The egg was prepared in an unexpected fashion however: boiled, and added onto the pizza in chunks. This differs from the usual Italian method of breaking the egg onto the centre of the pizza so that it "fries" in the oven. The end result was a little cumbersome and hard to eat without making a mess but then again, perhaps this was the intention.
Mushrooms were certainly lacking on the capricciosona, and the olives were sadly lost in the maelstrom. Using larger, juicier olives may have remedied this.
If the pinsa capricciosona was very nice, the gluten free pizza campione ("champion pizza") was excellent. Chicken, spicy salame and Italian sausage married perfectly on top of a light base and generous bed of mozzarella. I was wary that the unusual addition of chicken might muddy the pizza, but it was used sparingly and when I did get a morsel of it, it lended a pleasingly rich, roasted flavour.
The star of the show was definitely the crumbled sausage, seasoned with just the right amount of fennel seeds. The cheese was a little thickly laden in places as it often is in Scotland, but I don't have a hard time forgiving them for it.
On both pizzas, the tomato sauce had a beautiful bright red hue, suggesting the use of fresh tomatoes, and both the pinsa and gluten free dough were of excellent quality.
Amarone is certainly the place to be if you want a filling pizza but skip on the bloating after which is all too often caused by badly made dough.
Overall the selection of food was excellent. The menu deviates just enough from the usual Italian fare while having plenty of options for those looking for something familiar. The gluten free desert choices were a highlight, offering a nice variety including affogato, chocolate mouse, panna cotta and coppa all'amarena.
Amarone wouldn't be my first choice for an intimate dining experience. Not only is it sprawlingly open plan but the background noise is thick and constant due to the sheer number of covers. However, the high ceilings and lack of music prevent the hubbub from feeling oppressive.
It is always a pleasure to visit an Italian restaurant that stands out from the crowd in the way that Amarone does, proving itself to be ambitious, visually impressive and, for the most part, authentic. A rare combination to stumble across even in the competitive Edinburgh market.
