Glasgow Food Stories: Open Goal Podcaster Si Ferry and chef Ally Beattie on opening Grosso in Dennistoun

GlasgowWorld

Open Goal Podcaster Si Ferry and chef Ally Beattie on opening Grosso in the East End of Glasgow

Transcript

00:00There you go, one of the first pizzas out of the oven at Grosso, or here on Duke Street.

00:07Glasgow's newest Italian restaurant that's come to shape in the background.

00:10We've got Si and Ali here to tell us all about it.

00:14Tell me about the background to the menu.

00:16Ali, when you started off thinking about how you could bring this all together and bring

00:20some of the influences together, where did it start?

00:23I'm going to grab some pizza.

00:25Yeah, please, dig in.

00:26What an honest review for you here, Paul.

00:27Yeah, that's it, that's it.

00:28So, first bite, everyone knows the rules.

00:31We're cracking.

00:32Right, anyway.

00:33So, yeah.

00:34Obviously, we're an Italian restaurant, Si has connections to the East End, so along with

00:39the Italian part of it, we also want to integrate some of our Scottish roots into the pizza and

00:45the pasta as well.

00:47So on this pizza in particular, we've got Italian spianata, we've got black pudding, we've got

00:55mozzarella, we've got crowdy cheese and basil.

00:58So this is probably our biggest combo of the Scottish and Italian ingredients.

01:05Now, the pizza dough, obviously, I can't divulge the exact recipe.

01:09There's three flours in there, it's a 72-hour bulk ferment, and then it's about a three-and-a-half

01:15break, so quite a little bit of love.

01:17And the tray's from the pound shop on Duke Street as well, so there's your East End.

01:22There's the fact that you are on Duke Street and you do have connections, both of these

01:26have got connections to this area specifically, make it, you know, more, a bit more than up

01:31here, somewhere that you know.

01:32Well, when I first moved through here, I used to get the train to Bell Grove and walk through

01:36Duke Street to get to Sally Park.

01:37So this was always the first thing I'd seen when I first moved through to Glasgow.

01:40Very quickly started eating Italian restaurants around here, which is probably where my love

01:44for Italian food came from.

01:45I've said to you before, there wasn't really a lot of authentic Italian restaurants in

01:49Dundee.

01:50You know, Frankie and Benny's was as good as it got.

01:51So when I first came to Duke Street and tasted Italian food, it was kind of where my first

01:56love for Italian food came.

01:57So it's got such a special place in my heart.

01:59I always say at the time, like Tommy Burns had us running up and doing Duke Street.

02:01He used to tell us what it meant to local people to come up with their set legs.

02:04So there's always been that sort of affiliation and love for it.

02:07So I'm delighted that we can bring something to the local people at Duke Street.

02:10And for me, yeah, we were kids and it was always a trip to the Maggio's.

02:16And those were fun times back in the day, you know, Italian food was new and not really

02:20a thing here.

02:21So we're trying to recreate that, like a new buzz around it, a different style and definitely

02:26something that's our style, but without losing our roots here in the east end of Glasgow,

02:30recently.

02:31Tell me about the past element, because there's a bit of an international element on it as

02:36well.

02:37Because, you know, like Simon's talked to me about liking, you know, like New York places

02:40and stuff like that.

02:41And, you know, you see that there's a lot of commonality in terms of like New York Italian

02:45and Glasgow Italian.

02:46Yeah, exactly.

02:47Or in terms of attitude, where they speak and also the way they cook.

02:49Yeah, yeah.

02:50So how are you about bringing that in?

02:52So Sai's going to be out in the street, shouting at all the neighbours, come in, come in, come

02:56in, the typical Italian way.

02:57But yeah, it's like a red sauce joint as well.

03:01Yeah.

03:02That's a nice description of it.

03:04It's good.

03:05It's not like authentic, authentic American.

03:08We're really trying to get those three philosophies in there, Italian, American and Scottish.

03:14And we've got some quite clearly authentic Italian pasta dishes.

03:19But we've also got the thicker sauces on the like lasagna and everything, a little bit

03:26sweeter, moving away from your classic Italian style.

03:29So there's a flavour in there for everyone that comes, you know, because, you know, the

03:34essentially authentic through and through Italian sauces are.

03:37Did you two guys know each other or did you meet through this?

03:41We went to a friend, a mutual friend of ours.

03:43We've been kissing each other ever since, haven't we?

03:45We need to stop that.

03:46Aye, that was probably eight months ago.

03:49Yeah, about eight months ago.

03:50Eight months ago.

03:51And backwards and forwards, then we got some tastings done.

03:54Ali invited us, sorry to interrupt you mate.

03:56Ali invited us up to his place in Straven to taste his pizza.

04:00And for that day, I'm not just saying it, like fell in love.

04:02We knew he was the guy to come and do this for us.

04:04Like that sort of pizza was, I don't think you've seen that in Glasgow before.

04:08How Ali cooks his pizzas.

04:09So we knew that he was the guy for that.

04:11And then we kind of just built a menu around that.

04:13So he's been, he's an excellent pizza chef.

04:16So the pasta side of things, what can we expect from that?

04:19So the pasta side of it, there's eight dishes on there.

04:22There's a mixture of meat, fish, vegetarian.

04:25There's a ravioli on there.

04:26There's a really great lasagna.

04:28And we've got prawns and crab that are local to Scotland in one of the dishes.

04:32Very simple with garlic, chilli, parsley, lemon juice.

04:36And a few surprises in there of our own making, which we'll release at some point.

04:42You want to do one with a Mars bar, don't you?

04:44Absolutely.

04:45Deep fried Mars bar.

04:46And a few different mascarpone.

04:52Vodka.

04:53Vodka.

04:54Blends vodka.

04:55That's it.

04:56Blends white spirit.

04:58Now you've been in here, this building, since the start, in terms of seeing it all come together.

05:03What are you most looking forward to in terms of getting people in the door and sat down and serving?

05:08I don't think you've ever seen a restaurant with this aesthetic in Duke Street.

05:12I mean, even the amount of people that have not even been inside that just drive by the outside

05:16and message me straight away saying, oh my God, the building looks incredible.

05:19I've heard locals of Duke Street saying, love what you've done with the place.

05:22Totally brightened up the street.

05:23So I think that visual thing of when you first walk in here, it's that wild factor, I think.

05:27And I've no doubt that the food's going to match that as well.

05:29So I just think it's going to be such a nice, vibrant place for people to come and spend time with each other.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended