WHEN people say that Puglia is the new Tuscany, I'm not quite sure what they mean.
If they are suggesting that Puglia is less overrun with foreign tourists than the well-walked streets of Florence or Sienna, then that's true, although Puglia's long, golden beaches, forests, cone-shaped "trulli" houses, fine towns and cities, and historic architecture, come as no surprise to Italian holidaymakers. But there the similarity ends. And gastronomically speaking, Pugliese food is very different from Tuscan. The latter is rich with meat and cheese, while in Puglia, as I discovered this summer, it's all about fish and vegetables, amply anointed with the region's prolific supply of olive oil.
The Tarantino restaurant that opened recently in Glasgow takes its name from Taranto, Puglia's coast. Its boss comes from just outside the lively town of Lecce; its chef is Sicilian. There's a natural bond here between two regions whose cuisines have been shaped in part by wider Mediterranean influences: a hint of Norman France, a whiff of imperial Spain, a dash of Moorish citrus and spice. And it gives me the utmost pleasure to report that this alliance seems to be proving fabulously fruitful. Tarantino is small, unpretentious, affordable, but most importantly, this is food that you would be glad to find in Italy: honest, authentic cooking rooted in culture and tradition, and served to you by people who, I suspect, would not be prepared to drop their own exacting standards, even if some of their diners wouldn't necessarily spot the difference.
What do I mean? I don't usually choose cheese, but when I heard what was on the platter, I had to. There were three different types of Pecorino - one young, low-salt, with a milky sourness, one saltier and longer aged, one mature, studded with peppercorns - a crema di Dolcelatte that was just on point, and the fabulous Testun al Barolo from Piedmont, a powerful, salty, crumbly miracle made from sheep's and goat's milk, and matured in the grape must left over from the production of Barolo wine.
If you could find these Pecorinos and the Testun in a well-stocked Italian deli, they would cost a fortune. At Tarantino, there was enough to feed two people in a one-person serving, with a mound of crackers, thin celery sticks and a bunch of grapes, all for just £7.50. Just to set this in context, we can - and do - pay as much for a few mean slivers of unremarkable cheese that has been lost in the depths of a chef's fridge for months. Chefs more meticulous about their sourcing now routinely charge £12 or £13 for a cheeseboard of such quality and rarity.
As for the cooking, it has the steadiness, the experience, the no-need-to-show-off attitude of the best home cooks; and I mean this as a compliment. We began with complimentary vegetable fritters that you dip in a first-rate tomato sugo. Then there was an aubergine parmigiana "in bianco", baked under a bubbling, gratinated crust in a textbook Bechamel sauce, minus the more common tomato. I had never thought of aubergine as comfort food; now I do. Slivers of chargrilled courgette formed into neat "involtini" rolls filled with beaten tuna and olives, capped with capers, were delicate, healthy, and yet really satisfying. Wild boar, simmered for hours in Primitivo wine with wintry herbs and vegetables, made an exemplary stew, with fingers of crusty, coarse-grain polenta to mash into its thick, naturally reduced gravy. Handmade ravioli, stuffed with the boar, this time blended into a smooth, flavour-packed paste, and dressed in a piquant chilli and tomato sugo, caressed the mouth with its duo of firm consistencies and its sheer substance.
Everything is made in-house at Tarantino, except the ice cream, which is bought in from Italy because it meets the owner's high specification. It met mine too, a velvety, mouth-filling blend of hazelnut and chocolate with the odd sliver of praline lost in its sumptuous depths. Homemade orange and chocolate cheesecake had similar allure.
Tarantino is a type of Italian restaurant that I love: low on show, but high on performance.
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