Gianni loves talking about food as much as cooking.
If you don't understand Italian, you'll probably do a dramatic double-take like me, writes Bill Clapperton. Starters at this two-month-old South Side Italian restaurant include, and I quote, "Ostriche con brut champagne." I cant imagine how chef Giovanni Fargnoli finds enough bubbly to cook an ostrich. Or even a pan big enough. But - stupido! - the word turns out to mean oysters.
La Campana has quietly materialised above the Old Bell pub in Causewayside and is run by Giovanni, who will from now on be known as Giovanni the Grin.
He's the kind of Italian chef who, as much as he loves cooking, keeps dashing out front from the kitchen with a frantic energy to chat to his customers, smiling and talking food.
Much of the menu at The Bell is obvious Italiano fare, but in several places it leans quite significantly towards dishes that take it out of the ordinary.
We could have had a choice from five soups, snails or frogs legs (I'll never be that hungry!), huge langoustines, scallops, squid, monkfish, halibut, stuffed peppers and aubergines, cured meats, little gnocchi potato dumplings, grilled polenta...
Plus the requisite number of pizzas and pastas for those who are frightened off by too much culinary adventure
From the street, you'd never guess La Campana was such a hive of industry.
We started out with fat fresh scallops grilled with cheese, and deep fried squid (not those nasty little rubbery rings, but tasty, lightly-battered pieces, suckers and all) and, with a bottle of the delicious, and beautifully priced house Montepulciano D'Abruzzi to hand we moved on to greater things.
Vitello limone was a clean-cut plateful of thin-sliced veal, unencumbered by its light citrus sauce, and grilled whole lemon sole, filleted ("yippee") and with prawns and asparagus and creamy Dia Oria sauce on top.
The baked char-grilled red and yellow peppers, fennel and courgette veg platter was worth all Giovanni's efforts, as were his potatoes paesana, fried with bacon and onions.
We finished with a great wodge of pavlova and my expresso coffee. Bliss.
Giovanni's place isn't one of those red and white tablecloth trattorias with a snowstorm of parmesan on every plateful.
It's gone up several gears, with some excellent wines (top of the list you'll find Barolo and Amarone) to match the foods.
Gianni serves up another treat.
Everything seems possible from Giovanni's kitchen - "I cook you whole squid stuffed with herbs if you want" - and the place is airy and totally unstuffy.
Service is "watchful" and slick and when you leave you'll feel like one of the family.
PS: If you're a garlic-head, order pizza garlic bread while perusing the menu. It drips with butter and is as thin as the last government's majority.
Rating Choice..........9 Taste...........8 Service.........9 Atmosphere......8 Value...........8