Euros 2024 Food and Drink: We visit Oro in the Southside to find out more about Italian food in Glasgow

Ahead of the Euros we’ve been visiting restaurants across Glasgow to immerse in the cultures of teams playing.

Transcript

00:00We just can't get out of this business, it's in our blood.

00:03Good afternoon, I'm Domenico Crolla, owner of Oro Restaurant in Glasgow.

00:08We're striving amongst so many good Italian restaurants in Glasgow

00:11to make good food and keep our customers happy.

00:15A lot of fancy restaurants now try and steer away from none of them.

00:18We don't do lasagna, we don't do carbonara.

00:21I think a good lasagna is fantastic, a good carbonara is great.

00:25So we stick to the basics.

00:27Good pasta, good pizza, fabulous steaks, chicken, fish,

00:32all with a bit of Italian flavour.

00:34We import as much as we can to make things as authentic as possible,

00:39give people the right flavour profile.

00:43Yeah, we're trying hard.

00:45I love it when people ask me about Italian food in Glasgow

00:48because Italian restaurants are so good in Glasgow.

00:52I don't want to name names, but they've been owner-run,

00:56they've been in generations for two or three generations.

01:01People from the rest of the UK are quite surprised when they come to Glasgow

01:05because the food is so good.

01:08Not just Italian, but Chinese and Indian.

01:11It's exceptional compared to the rest of the UK.

01:14I think that might be because we don't get too much tourism,

01:18so we have to try a bit harder.

01:20Edinburgh, for example, doesn't need to try, people just walk in the door

01:24so they can give them any rubbish.

01:28So if you compete a Glasgow restaurant against an Edinburgh restaurant,

01:32we always win.

01:34I might be biased.

01:36I've grown up in the business as a small boy.

01:38I'd work in my dad's cafe and you kind of work your way up through the ranks.

01:44I'd also have my dad telling me, get an education, do something else.

01:48This is the business that I liked.

01:52I felt the most natural thing to do, to sell food, to entertain people,

01:58be a host.

02:02That's what I am, I'm a host.

02:04I'm not a restaurateur, I'm not a chef.

02:07People come along and I try and make their evenings as pleasant as possible.

02:13My son, I wasted so much good money to send him to school,

02:19to do something else, and now he's in the business as well, and my daughter as well.

02:24She married a chef, a Michelin star chef, but she married a chef.

02:28So we just can't get out of this business, it's in our blood.