Since its doors opened in September, Romano Perella’s ‘very modern take on Italian cuisine’ Malocchio has been a hit with Glasgow diners.
The new venture, on the Merchant City site long occupied by Mediterraneo, has been all over social media with its signature vodka pasta and happily busy day and night, thanks to the ‘fresh, forward-thinking twists’ it has brought to the city’s Italian scene.
But Perella is determined not to sit back on that initial success, and has just announced that Malocchio will be introducing a new menu next month which will see some of its very popular launch dishes drop out in favour of new innovations.
Perella said: “We have some amazing new dishes coming on when we shift to 2.0 at the start of March.
“And yes, the biggest Insta hit dish is going, the one everyone orders. But we’re very confident the new ideas are even better.
“We sell a lot of vodka pasta, so logically we should probably leave it on in a business sense. But that’s not how we think.
He added: “Don’t worry – you can still get the flavour of the vodka pasta sauce on the new menu – we’re making a pizzette using the sauce.”
Incoming dishes include baked lasagne, meatballs with winter tomatoes and parmesan and a ‘simple but stunning’ potato gnocchi with butter and sage. Look out also for cacio pepe raviolo with confit egg, black pepper butter and winter truffle.
“I love them all but if I had to choose one, the crab tortelloni with squid ink, seaweed butter and samphire,” said Perella.
“That’s the one I think will get the big reaction, the flavours are sensational and it looks incredible – it’s striking.
“I also love the new seabass dish – whole butterflied seabass, grilled with salsa verde, harissa and lemon.”
There will also be new pizzette toppings, including carbonara with smoked pancetta, parmesan, black pepper and confit egg, plus the vodka sauce with Calabrian nduja sausage and a fresh twist with a fried pizzette, mortadella, stracciatella and truffle honey.
Romano is confident the 2.0 menu will have as big an impact as the launch menu has had over the restaurant’s first six months.
He said: “There’s a buzz as we get ready to change it up – almost like ahead of opening but a lot less stressful.
“We don’t want to play it safe. We never want to sit back and think, ‘this is it – we did it’. It’s about always working to be better than we were yesterday.”
