By way of light entertainment, I take a photo on my phone of Joe looking across the epic Civernos 20-incher pizza, raised as it is majestically on its chrome stand, from the other side of the table.
Frankly? Given the way the lens distorts, Joe’s not looking his best. Pizza looks great though. But when I show it to Debs later at home her only reply is “ooh that crust looks very dry.”
Honestly? After I double-take, I realise it’s the food she’s talking about. It does. But it’s actually not dry.
In another phone photo from the very same meal, I send a snap of the menu with the restaurant decor in the background to Garry. “Looks s#*#*!” is the instant reply. Uh. He’s kinda of right.
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This new pizza palace on Radnor Street almost in Glasgow’s West End - clinging as it is tightly, and rather precariously, to the fringe of the fab-food Finnieston Strip - seems to have been decorated on a budget. A very tight one. Empty plywood or something cheap.
Shelves climb the walls. Pre-school colours. Big, bold and unclear words (bad font moment) are painted near the top of the very high ceiling. There’s some pretty clunky partition action happening as well.
But hang on. Maybe … it’s actually meant to look like this, Civerinos being one of those rip-roaring Edinburgh successes that having been a smash hit with the Instamob at the other end of the M8, has now arrived to conquer Glasgow.
Truthfully? That’s a culinary movie plot that rarely ends well.
And yet, tonight viewers? Champions League on the nation’s tellies, slate-hued skies meets slate-hued world outside, traffic lights shimmering in the baltic dreariness of baltic October and it being a Tuesday too? It’s bloody mobbed in here.
I am met within two steps by a fabulously cheery Irish-sounding waiter who directs me to a tiny table by the door that looks like an unfinished phone booth, with cushions; he gives me the wham-bam Civerinos flim-flam, on symbols, slices (not available for the Taco Bella) and has the order sewn up even before Joe comes rolling along.
Now. You’re thinking this: absolutely no way does the world need another pizza chain. Yeah. I was thinking that too. But within minutes of eating I realise an amazing thing about pizza: it just never gets old. Add gigantic-sized pies (or available by the single slice), throw in New York City neighbourhood slice bar yadaya and Holy Semole, what we have here folks is a Unique Selling Point.
Oh, there’s also some stuff on the internet about selling trainers which I, ahem, didn’t bother to read.
Sit down for this though, if you are not already sitting. Twen-ty-ei-ght-of your Scottish pounds plus fifty pees for a single, yes just one, pizza. Ooft. However. Necks crane, cool kids stare, passers-by pause just to look at this damn monster thing. And here’s the surprising bit: it’s pretty tasty too. Double sugo, Italian (in style only) sausage, pepperoni, rosemary, black pepper (that’s a topping?), parsley, garlic oil and little bobbly balls of Burrata.
At first I think, hmm, that’s a lot of tomato, a whole damn prairie of it stretching away. At second I think: but it’s actually rich and textured. Thin, floppy, juicy, tasty what can you say? Only this. The pizza dough itself has enough salt in it to zing, it chews, it moistens, it’s fired righteously. Throughout.
Now I get it. Nobody seems to be pretending that this is as authentic as you will get in old Napoli, just that it fills, and entertains. I order a pepperoni slice too, £6, and I like it mainly because the parmesan and sugo gloops together just like it should.
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Negs? Less impressed with the slices of Detroit Deep Dishers. They sail way too close to being thick slices of baked bread to me.
We finish with hot Cinammon Zeppole Doughnuts for £6.95. In English? Deep-fried pizza lumps with cinnamon powder. Clever rather than good. Civerinos overall though? I’d say: clever. And surprisingly, quite good.
Civernos, Finnieston, Radnor Street, Glasgow
Menu: Just when you thought there was nothing else to say about pizza, an Edinburgh chain pitches up with 20-inchers, or pizzas by the slice. Wacky combos too, but who hasn’t seen those? 4/5
Service: Hard to fault; fast, fluid, friendly and chirpy cheery. 5/5
Price: It is genuinely £28 for the most expensive pizzas, but they’re huge, and there are slices available for £6. Lesser giants available for lesser amounts. 3/5
Atmosphere: Has some of the buzz that propelled it to stardom in the capital, ken; decor is an eyesore but frankly I’m not the target market. 4/5
Food: They’re big, they’re bold. And by all that’s right, they should be doughy, dry and truly terrible, yet they’re not. Very good rich sugo, and pizza dough that somehow holds it all together despite the challenges. 7/10
23/30
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