Oh Mamma Mia! When the food is this good we could eat it all damn day – which is just as well because Italian restaurant Passo have a cracking weekend brunch menu.
Located just a stone’s throw from Old Street roundabout, Passo is a real beauty of a restaurant. Huge and airy with plenty of space between tables, the open kitchen showcases the busy team handling the pizza oven and rustling up dishes. J ’adore de décor. Cocktails are exactly what you’d want for brunch – juicy bubbles, bloody mary’s and avocado spiked pina coladas. They’ve recently teamed up with VII Hills Gin (an Italian spirit, using local botanicals!) which replaced the vodka in our mary – a truly authentic Italian experience through and through. Even if you’re not boozing, they’ll happily knock you up something exciting, as was evident from my pregnant friends rather elaborate softie.
Food wise, the brunch menu has a small sweet section featuring pastries, pancakes and the like, but we dived straight into the small plates. Halloumi, crisped to a golden perfection (not burnt like you get from your mates BBQ – there’s a BIG difference) was drizzled with honey and sprinkled with fried, fragrant oregano. We partnered that with a herby fennel sausage, served on creamy ricotta. Good combo.
Moving onto the larger plates, we devoured a heap of slow-cooked wild boar ragu, piled onto a single piece of sourdough. Who needs pasta? (ME! but you can only get that from 2pm – TWO WORDS: TRUFFLE TAGLIATELLE). A cast iron skillet of shakshuka didn’t disappoint either, stuffed with spicy ‘nduja and creamy mozzarella. They’ve put a Sicilian stamp on the ‘Full English’ – with prosciutto replacing bacon and bruschetta filling in for fried bread – we certainly know what we’d rather. We’ll be back soon to give the breakfast pizzas a whirl.
The location means there’s not a whole lot of passing traffic at the weekend, which is a shame, because the food makes Passo well worth the visit.
Brunch is served from 9am – 4pm on Saturdays and 10am – 4pm on Sundays.
