You often hear the complaint of “God, not another one” when a new burger joint opens up in Cardiff, but the same refrain tends to be absent when a new Italian restaurant opens up. By my count (well AI’s actually) there are currently 50 + Italian restaurants in Cardiff  (I suspect AI may be stretching the definition a bit with that number) and about 15 – 20 (I discount the fast food chains as I never go in them and to be honest regard them as food factories rather than restaurants) dedicated burger bars (to be joined in 2027 by the Beefy Boy) so it seems if anything there is a surfeit of Italian restaurants. 

To me this is what AI is all about, with its ability to provide us with instant answers to almost any inane question you can think of and the only (tweeny whiny) downside being it may/probably will kills us all. Surely that is a risk well worth taking when you can ask it how many penguins live on earth (between 10 mill. and 40 mill. apparently, which seems remarkably imprecise for our all powerful soon to be AI overlords to be honest. God, I really hope Iain M. Banks’ “Cultured” vision of the future is correct 🙄).

Italian wise all the buzz is about Solina at the moment, which does look promising (based on a review of its Bath branch from people whose opinion I rate), but I like to be  “anti on trend” (Mrs. SF says my fashion sense is about as off trend as is humanly possible based on my firm view that a check shirt is the epitome of cool) so I will leave that until the Istagramaaaaazing herd has moved on to the next “Starmuck’s’ new Autumn menu, the pumpkin spiced frappelattemochochinomatchaburntbeansblend is insanely good and literally to die for #ad” thing.

Now I love a good Italian restaurant and regard Italian food (with its oft focus on the use of a few top quality ingredients) as up there with the very best of the World’s cuisines. Conversely, I bloody loathe ones that bastardise the underlying themes of Italian food. 

I actually don’t mind a decent spag. bol. at  home, but would never order it out (unless it is called and is tagliatelle al ragù). Tell someone from Bologna that spag. bol. is authentic to their city and expect a smack in the mouth.

Also don’t get me started on the heretical use of cream to make a noitsbloodynotanara.

I am currently an avid viewer of a pasta You Tube channel where a chef (with no talking, let alone needless bigging himself up or grotesque gurning) makes a multitude of pasta dishes. It never ceases to amaze me how creamy/glossy he gets his sauces through the application of heat control, agitation and (most importantly) copious amounts of pasta water (to which he has added dead sea concentration levels of salt).

I follow his techniques and get pretty good results and as such if I (an utter incompetant) can do it then there is absolutely no excuse for a restaurant to thicken a pasta sauce through the application of cream (except in very limited circumstances where the original  recipe requires “panne” such as pasta alla Norcina). If I see unnecessary cream on a pasta menu description I tend to automatically discount the place as I think if they are lazy about that then what other corners are they cutting?

This brings me to the recently (well by my geological time standards of getting around to reviewing a place) opened Pane Olio in the Rhiwbina burb of Cardiff. Oddly it seems to have passed the “Influenza” crowd by and I assume there is absolutely no correlation whatsoever in terms of that and no freebies having being on offer and they will all get there in the end (but I mean Dave’s Hot Chicken is just light years ahead on the “hidden gem” list isn’t it🤷).

I love a Friday lunch outing and from Gourmet Gorro’s review of the place saw they do a lunchtime fixed price menu (of which I am always a fan) and thought why not.

On top of that the sample menu online looked exactly what I like an Italian place to be.

The lunch deal is a truncated version of the main menu,

with a decent amount of choice and no accursed supplements (as a general rule I don’t think a fixed price menu should operate with supplements – saw one the other day where three out of the four main all attracted one which is just bloody ridiculous).

Pricing wise it is competitive in Cardiff at just under £25 for 2 courses and sub £30 for 3.

Some interesting starter options, two of which caught my fancy.  I love crostino Toscano and make a pretty passable one (and it would have been interesting to see how my efforts compared to the pros). The broccoli flan with a pecorino fondue, however, rather intrigued as something I have never made.  It sounded a bit like a quiche type affair (which doesn’t seem very Italian) but on further investigation it seems no pastry was involved.

As I am familiar with and can do myself the crostino, I decided to go green (it wasn’t) with the broccoli flan for my first course.

This turned out to be a rather good decision.

More a veggie terrine than a flan,

it had a nicely yielding texture with an earthy sweetness for the broccoli. The pecorino fondue (I would call it a crema) added a pleasing nutty salinity to the mix.

Surprisingly delicate dish this for broccoli and a very promising start, with my only quibble being a bit of bread (place has pane in the title after all) to mop up that rather fine pecorino sauce would have been nice (noting that focaccia and sourdough was £5.50 and probably only worth getting if sharing).

What to have for my second course was a somewhat easier choice.  With me despising pumpkins at this time of year (due to the bloody pumpkin patch bollocks currently being foisted on us – dear Lord how I loathe the unholy Americanised bullshit that is Halloween and rather lean into the pumpkin carved with “fxck off” meme) I gave the risotto a hard pass, me being well over the njuda in everything craze (even if its inclusion here looked actually justified) discounted the tagliatelle (I am ever so slightly shocked that someone hasn’t delivered a pumpkin,  njuda and probably hot honey spice latte monstrosity, but give it time) and I wasn’t really feeling it for the chicken dish with only spinach as a side.

It was thus an easy choice in terms of going for the Roman classic that is pasta all’amatriciano (which is much less liable to being bastardised than its carbonara cousin).

I like the balance of rich fatty cured pork,  acidity and sweetness from tomatoes and that nutty salty tang from pecorino Romano cheese that make for a good amataiciano.

What arrived looked to tick a lot of my pasta boxes

Nice looking dish this, which was a decent portion size. Properly rendered down (but not nuked) guinciale had a crisp crust and soft yielding interior to it, the pasta was cooked the correct al dente with the sauce sticking to its ridges and a drift of nutty salty pecorino atop it all.

The sauce was neither too thick nor too watery, with a nice gloss from the undoubted addition of pasta water (a absolute must for virtually all pasta dishes.

Nice acidity, touch of sweetness  and a pleasing freshness to the sauce, with a back note of warming chilli heat in the mix. This all operated to balance the richness from the fatty pork and cheese.

I again rather lamented my lack of bread to mop up the sauce

Good pasta dish this, which hit the spot nicely.

I passed on desserts (would have upped to bill to just under £30 as opposed to just under £25 for two courses), but the options (whilst limited) looked pretty good.

As it was a Friday, I decided a glass of vino was in order.

The wine list is a bit of an enigma, with some stuff of potential interest in an all Italian offering. It has the regular stuff on it, but also stuff like susmaneilo, cardinale and caleno that you don’t see on everyday lists. The oddity is the lack of detail, with no information at all as to producers or vintages. The cardinale, for instance, could conceivably be from Puglia, Le Marche, Lazio or Tuscany?

Now from going in their next door deli I can give pretty good quesses as to what these wines are,

but if I hadn’t I would be none the wiser without having to ask a myriad of questions and that sort of negates the point of a wine list doesn’t it?

Mark ups are difficult to assess without producer details or vintages, but they seem to be selling a Roma at £37 retail and if it is the same one it is £48 on the list. On the face of it that seems very reasonable. Using the internet, the cheapest I can find the Roma (the one on sale in their deli) is £25, so £48 on the list is still pretty good.

Having said that, not liking to moan but…, if you are asking me to shell out say £85 for a wine on a list you really have to do better than simply putting “Barolo” on your list to describe it.

Moan over, I had a 175ml glass of the chianti classico (£8)

Pleasant number, with that trademark sangiovese cherry tartness working well with both dishes I had. Decent drop and decent pour, I thought.

No idea as to producer or year, but in the next door deli  I spied a Mazzei Ser Lapo 2017 chianti classico priced at £30.

The fact that the Pane Olio chianti rufino (which must surely be the house wine on the list as when I asked what the house wine was I was told it was a chianti rufina and it had Pane Olio on the label) was nigh on next to it suggest so, but the bottle price of £33 and 175ml glass price of £8 would suggest otherwise as does fact that the cheapest I can find Ser Lapo in the UK on the internet is £24. If it is that one then £33 to drink in would be very fair value, but regardless it was decent value. 

The verdict

I rather enjoyed my lunch at Pane Olio, the food was tasty, interesting, with decent portion sizes and cooked by someone who cleanly knows what they are doing.

For the £24.95/£29.95 for 2/3 courses it represents pretty good value in my book.

As such definitely a thumbs up from me  with the only proviso to that being they need a much more informative wine list.

Service was very good, with water bought without prompt

and no automatically added service charge (in hindsight my appalling “I’m a lawyer” maths may have resulted in a slighly smaller tip than I actually intended😬, which may be a reason to automatically add one to a bill).

The deli next door has a decent selection (particularly cold meat)

and I picked up some nice looking guinciale and pecorino Romano.

I was also sorely tempted by the fine looking mortadella,

but resisted.

All in all a very positive visit and a good addition to the Cardiff food scene in my humble opinion.

Details

Address: 2B Heol Deri, Rhiwbina, Cardiff, CF14 6HF.

Website: https://paneolio.co.uk/

Opening hours: