Review: Gusto Didsbury

If you are looking for an “I want something nice, but not too expensive” evening, Gusto Didsbury is the place for you. The restaurant is situated in the heart of Didsbury amongst other various restaurants and bars on the high street. It serves mainly Italian cuisine, and while I usually don’t get overly excited about a standard ‘pizza-pasta’ menu this was somehow different.

I went with my boyfriend on a Wednesday evening, and it was the ideal place for us to go and have a late meal. There’s something not so romantic about heading to Nandos in Fallowfield, and town is sometimes a bit too far when you live in Withington. It had a great ambience, which I would recommend for dates! It was both dimly lit and spacious.

The menu had a really good selection, with loads of starters and main courses. It did not really deviate from standard Italian cuisine  but nonetheless still featured a wide variety of pizza, pasta, meat, and fish dishes. However, despite the wide selection, I have to point out that there wasn’t actually any allergen information on the menu. It says it is available ‘upon request’, but there was not any specific ‘vegetarian’, ‘gluten-free’, or ‘may contain nuts’ labels.

We began by ordering two starters to share between us: Hand-Rolled Meatballs in a tomato sauce and the Crispy Calamari. The meatballs were good, but there just seemed to be a lot of tomato sauce and not much meat for the price of £6.50. The calamari on the other hand was very tasty and definitely good value for money. It also came with a decent helping of lemon-mayonnaise.

For my main course I ordered the Tagliatelle with Smoked Salmon and Dill. It was a healthy portion which came with spinach and peas in a cream sauce. If you are a lover of salmon then I would certainly recommend this dish –  especially if you get bored of the almost obligatory tomato flavouring in Italian places. This main was £13.25, which I thought was quite reasonable. I would definitely say that the mains are much better value for money than the starters.

The service in Gusto was excellent: all the staff were really friendly and the food came very quickly. We decided to stay and finish our drinks in the heated terrace outside, which was quite cute. It’s not the most amazing place, but if you’re looking for somewhere closer to home to have nice meal and evening, Gusto is a very good option!