Gusto, Newcastle upon Tyne Review

Gusto is located in the trendy Quayside area of Newcastle. It’s part of a restaurant chain, but it doesn’t feel like it. From the outside, it looks impressive through the glass exterior putting a gleaming façade on the building. Upon entering we immediately receive a warm welcome and are shown to our table on the mezzanine level of the restaurant.

From up here we have a great view of the river Tyne and the Millennium Bridge. The décor is light and airy and has the feel of an exclusive bistro, with its cream leather booth seats and wooden floorboards. The lighting is especially worthy of note, with multiple lights suspended from the ceiling at different heights, some of which run right down to the lower level creating a romantic ambience.

Whilst pondering over the menu we were offered some delicious marinated olives and also ordered the dough petals drizzled in garlic butter. A couple of the dough petals were slightly overcooked which resulted in them having a slight chewy texture, however the ones which were cooked to perfection just melted in the mouth which made it the perfect pondering dish.

For starter, we ordered a Tuscan soup, which was tomato based, and utterly delicious. My dinner date had a goats cheese tart with cranberry and red pepper and red onion marmalade. From the quality of food we had seen so far, this is a restaurant chain with a difference.

Main course was a large seafood risotto which was very enjoyable. It looked great on the plate, was nice on the nose, and delicious to eat. We also had a pan-fried duck breast on a bed of creamed cabbage with a juniper and honey sauce. The duck breast was perfectly cooked, seared on the outside, but a lovely rich pink in the middle.

We also enjoyed sides of steamed spinach and sea salt, garlic mushrooms, and unusually for us, some fries. We had seen someone else eating them, and they looked so good we had to have some too.

Our dining experience at Gusto was completely positive, with the exception of our overdone dough petals, the food was faultless.