Locanda de Gusti

102 Dalry Road, Edinburgh

0131 346 8800

Lunch/Dinner £12- £33

Food rating 9/10

IT'S an upbeat experience, dining at Locanda de Gusti. Even on a Monday evening it was turning people away, albeit in the most charming Italian manner. This is a small place, true, in a densely populated area, and an easy stroll for guests in Edinburgh's busy west end hotels, but the success of this restaurant isn't just down to demand and supply. Its infectiously hospitable atmosphere stems from the enthusiasm of chef-proprietor Rosario Sartore, his wife Maria, and her team, who very evidently invest deeply in the project and get a high from working there, a bit like theatre actors when a play goes really well. Their easy confidence is not a bravura performance, but predicated on Sartore's capable cooking, which is Neapolitan to its roots, big on fish and shellfish (aromas of grilling seafood kick-start the salivary glands), and intent on serving up some authenticity. "Honest, sincere, simple" is the approach, cooking learned from Sartore's mother and aunt, a feel for ingredients honed on childhood visits to food markets.

We didn't trawl the ocean of marine possibilities, visiting on a Monday, traditionally a bad day for seafood, although I'm not sure that rule really holds any longer. Certainly at Locanda de Gusti you'd think that the catch had just been landed. Lobster, simply grilled or crowning a tangle of pasta, was the dish of the day, but spreading our nets more widely, we went for the Scottish seafood, cooked in white wine, with a kiss of chilli, and a dusting of flat parsley. Portions are gutsy here, so sharing this £9.95 starter netted us two plump langoustines, a handful each of mussels and Venus clams, a couple of scallops, and a pile-up of squid, the latter bordering on chewy in parts, I think because the tougher fin wings were included. But still this was a rewarding hands-on dish, its feisty terra cotta juices soaking into a crostino of darkly grilled, loose-knit ciabatta. It was upstaged by that classic, simple, eternally pleasing Italian salad of tender chopped octopus tentacles, their pearly white centres and mauve kiss curl exteriors mixed with earthy potato, crunchy fennel and salty black olives, all doused in lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. Actually, you could easily compose a meal around interesting starters and half-portions at Locanda, indeed the compelling potato croquette served with a small, smoked mozzarella (one distinctive enough to make me think it might be home-smoked), and a nest of well-oiled and seasoned bitter greens (friarielli), would do me for lunch. It's lovely to discover that when Sartore talks of "importing artisan ingredients", this includes fresh greens that have no obvious, easy equivalent grown here. The only other place I know that makes this effort is Valvona and Crolla's Caffè Bar, where the weekly vegetable delivery from Milan market contains otherwise unavailable fresh culinary delights such as cima di rape and Camone tomatoes.

Having consumed an appetite-sating amount of protein in the voluminous "starters", we ignored meaty main course options (things like sausage stewed with lentils, slow-cooked lamb shank ragu), and headed for small helpings of pasta. Handmade, rough-cut egg pasta, like slashed lasagne, came in a steamy clinch with smoked Scamorza cheese molten in tomato sauce, along with potato cubes and slices of guanciale (cured pig jowl), the latter a bit too crunchy to be a crowd pleaser. But I can't think that I have ever eaten better potato gnocchi, silken, diminutive pockets of pleasure served in a bubbling sugo of cherry tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella, the fragrant heat wafting up through an overlay of robust basil leaves.

Even when it comes to desserts - the point in an Italian meal where many restaurateurs stop trying - there's no let-up. A small, manageable round of rough, absorbent lemon cake sat soaking up liquid lemon custard, with a cobweb of caramelised sugar on top. Top-notch sorbets, imported from Italy, are disturbingly accurate dead ringers for the named fruits (clementine and kiwi) and nuts (walnut and peanut).

If you came across Locanda de Gusti in the back streets of Naples, you would count yourself lucky.

Locanda de Gusti, 102 Dalry Road, Edinburgh 0131 346 8800

Lunch/Dinner £12- £33

Food rating 9/10