Assaggini
Strap yourself in because we’ve got a double review for Assaggini! After attending their ’Spring Spritz’ event and also visiting the restaurant for dinner, I now have a solid opinion on whether it’s worth your money or not.
Throughout this review, I’m only really going to talk about the actual dinner because this was the full experience anybody would receive if they decided to go. Assaggini opened at the end of 2022 and you’ll find them on Rose Street, bang in the centre of the city. They focus on serving a range of small plates (2 plates on average per person) so you can enjoy more dishes in one sitting. There’s also plenty of seating inside with the restaurant going across two floors and it has a nice, chilled-out atmosphere.
Assaggini has a decent menu for drinks with plenty of wine, cocktails and soft drink options. We only had one drink so started off with a cocktail each from the after-dinner section — a mojito and a margarita. Both priced at £9, they were made well and tasted as they should!
To kick off the meal, we ordered a side of potato croquettes to share. These came stuffed with mozzarella and were served with a spicy mayo dip. Despite looking like the chef had thrown them at the plate whilst serving, they did taste fine (and even had a small cheese pull which I always love!).
Because we had shared a side to start, we ordered three plates between the two of us:
- Spaghetti carbonara: This was made the traditional way minus using pancetta rather than guanciale (thankfully though there was no cream to be seen!) and was finished with a grating of pecorino.
- Fettuccine funghi e tartufo: I’m always on board for truffle pasta and was glad that the fettuccine was cooked al dente. It was made using plenty of garlic, truffle oil and a lot of mushrooms. It was finished with a truffle powder so as you can imagine from the ingredients, it was pretty truffle heavy! This dish was probably my favourite from the evening.
- Pizza all Pinza with Italian sausage, peppers are basil: Being one of the most expensive dishes on the menu, this pizza was not worth the money. Pinsa pizzas are usually described as being “cloud-like” but this was far from. Although it looked like your usual pinsa pizza, it was super wet and was not an enjoyable texture. As well as the texture not being great, the flavour was also missing from the toppings.
Quickly, I’d like to touch on the ‘Spring Spritz’ event I attended recently as throughout the evening I was able to sample some more of their small plates and a bunch of their spritz cocktails.
- The Spaghetti ai frutti di mare was absolutely delicious. Again, a really authentic pasta dish which had mussels, clams, squid, king prawns, cherry tomatoes and basil in a white wine sauce with fresh chillies and garlic — just brilliant.
- The paccheri piccante which came in a mascarpone and ‘nduja sauce was also great. Cooked al dente with plenty of flavour!
- Tried the pizza again after my last visit, this time a classic with tomato sauce, fior di latte and basil! In my opinion, it’s hard to go wrong with a simple pizza like this one but sadly the base/crust was just not my cup of tea. It was so crispy on parts of the crust I could barely even bite into it and the toppings only covered about 1/3 of the pizza. Was it the worst thing I’ve ever eaten? No. But would I recommend you try it? No!
One thing I did enjoy was all of their spritz cocktails. The lychee and raspberry (despite lacking the taste of lychee) was great, as was the Aperol Spritz. But the best one of the evening was the ‘Assaggini Spritz’. Made up of limoncello, Saint Germain, lemon bitters, Prosecco and soda, this drink was super refreshing and was the perfect accompaniment alongside the (not so) small plates.
Unless I’ve just had two bad experiences with their pizzas, my initial thoughts were that Assaggini should focus their efforts more on pasta dishes and give up on the pizza. Their pasta options are great — they felt super authentic and were cooked perfectly each time.
My only other comment is that for a restaurant that focuses on small plates, the portion sizes aren’t that small. Although this isn’t a bad thing and with the prices not being much less than a standard pasta main from somewhere else (around £7-£10.50), it means you probably won’t order lots of dishes to try, especially if you’re dining as a table of 2.
My final thoughts are it would be a nice place for pasta lovers to try some authentic dishes in the centre of town but realistically there are better places in Edinburgh I’d suggest visiting instead.
- Assaggini
- 66 Rose St, Edinburgh EH2 2NN
- 0131 603 0090
- www.assaggini.co.uk
- Reservation or walk-ins
- £15-£25pp approx.
Disclaimer: Both visits were PR Invites but all views are my own.
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