Review: Amore

Amore has been a firm favourite with some members of my family for a while so we decided to pay the restaurant a visit. On arrival, for those of you who aren't familiar with the restaurant, it's perched on the far corner of Ingram St, off street level so you have to walk up stairs to get to the door.

It was apparent when we arrived they didn't have our booking but the restaurant had plenty of empty tables despite sounding very busy. We decided to sit in the bar area as it was next to the window & I like to watch the world go by. One thing Amore is not short of is choices! The menu is absolutely huge, with over 10 options in the starters, pizza & pasta. Most of it is a variation of typical italian dishes giving the menu an authentic Italian feel. One dish that drew my attention was a pizza with cheese, italian sausage, chicken & red & green chillies which stated you got a free glass of wine on your next visit if you could finish it.

Our starters arrived & we were greeted with large portions. We had ordered hot chilli gambretti (garlic & chilli prawns on garlic bread) and mussels marinara accompanied with garlic bread. There were plenty of prawns, which is a big plus given you usually get 3 or 4. The sauce that the prawns were in was lovely, with a nice spice hit to it. The mussels were also a bit hit. They were big fat juicy mussels & plenty of them. The marinara sauce was pleasant, although no different from any standard italian restaurant. I also loved the bowl the mussels came in, a tilted white bowl, which made it easier to get the sauce the mussels were in.

When we ordered our mains, I had noted that the menu stated that they use "De Cecco, the finest pasta in italy" and it required 15 minutes to cook. What I hadn't bargained on was that the 15 minutes was from when you ordered as our pasta arrived 5 minutes after our starters had been taken away. The mains were a big disappointment. The linguine was accompanied by a large number of prawns but the hot & spicy sauce stated on the menu was missing. Instead, it was relatively plain tomato sauce. Similarly, the chicken & pepper pasta did not taste of much. The main flavour from it was the roasted peppers & none of the "rich cream & tomato" sauce stated on the menu. From what I could gather, the restaurant appeared to be using the same sauce for most of their pasta but unfortunately, it is completely lacking in any flavour.


Given how quickly our mains arrived, the time taken for our meal after being seated was only just over an hour. I'm not a fan of restaurants who do not let you take your time between courses & feel they have to rush the next course out of the kitchen as soon as you are finished.

This visit was a tale of two halves, with the starters being a delight but the mains severely lacking in any flavour. Given the amount of Italian restaurants available in Glasgow, I doubt Amore would make the top 5. Saying that, I may be tempted to go back to try their hot pizza challenge one day!