Mia Italian Kitchen
394 Morningside Road, Edinburgh
0131 629 1019
Lunch/Dinner: £8.95-£38
Food rating 7.5/10
MORNINGSIDE, that leafy, affluent southern suburb of Edinburgh, continues to provide ample material for comedy. It wins out over Milngavie easily, purely because no-one outside Scotland knows how to pronounce that. And while you can squeeze a few laughs out of “Kelvinsayde” if you lay on your best Stanley Baxter voice, neither of these Glasgow addresses has Morningside’s rich potential for mocking Scotland’s respectable middle classes.
This year at the Edinburgh Festival, the amiable stand-up Mark Steel was “in toon” with his latest show. Moving from Robert Burns, through sectarianism, to the Glasgow-Edinburgh divide, he came to the latter’s once infamous drug problem. In the capital, famed for its “you’ll have had your tea” hospitality, he quipped, even dealers welcome their clients with a Baxter-esque: “You’ll have had your crack.”
Steel’s audiences take such digs with good humour. I’ll bet that he even amuses Morningsiders. What have they got to worry about anyway? Morningside is one the most comfortable areas in the entire UK. Its prosperous residents support independent shops. Its retirees find the energy to fight off the latest sinister property development plans. There’s a functioning library that still has books in it, a post office that hasn’t yet been closed, and excellent public transport. If you filter out the charity and coffee shops, it could be a 1970s high street before the supermarket gang of four moved in and strangled it.
So naturally, restaurateurs are eyeing up Morningside’s business potential. Traditionally it was a better area for a nine-to-five business, but as locals tire of battling their way around the tourist-focused centre, the appeal of an alternative right on the doorstep only grows. Mia, an Italian eatery already well established on grittier Dalry Road with its footfall of young professionals and tourists, has just opened up in Morningside. We went on a Monday evening, expecting an empty restaurant, yet it was busy, and got steadily busier as the evening went on.
From the daily specials chalked on the blackboard I was curious to taste the aubergine “polpette”. That word usually refers to meatballs, but this was more like a slice of fried aubergine providing the “meat” for a “sandwich” wherein the “bread” was formed from breadcrumbs, egg and cheese. Under a robust tomato sugo, dusted with Parmesan, topped with basil leaves, and anointed with extra virgin olive oil, it made an interesting vegetarian option.
It helps that Mia serves nice bread with a great crust and lacy, squidgy innards ideal for brushing with oil then dunking in the winey tomato broth of my zuppa alla pescatrice. This fish soup wasn’t the best of its kind: a handful of small mussels; a few squid tentacles with the texture of over-cooked liver; enough olives and capers to make the overall effect too salty. The half-lobster that came with a towering plateful of linguine, on the other hand, was generously proportioned and faultlessly juicy. The aroma of its sauce – fishy, thin, punctuated with cherry tomatoes – made the gastric juices flow. So why did they have to go and overcook the pasta? The thought crossed my mind that the Italians running the place would fully appreciate that it wasn’t al dente. Was this bungled timing, or a concession to the British habit of boiling pasta for too long?
The very firm duck in prune sauce underscored that sauces are the kitchen’s forte, this one purple and potent with well reduced red wine, its acidity balanced by the sweetness of the chewy, black dried fruits dotted through it. Sautéed potatoes, although they were the worse for an over-enthusiastic fistful of black pepper, made a better option that the boiled spuds, courgette, and cauliflower that must surely be another Italian indulgence of time-warped British mores. Desserts – competent tiramisù and lemon sorbet – were the opposite of mould-breaking, but then Morningside promises security rather than adventure.
Mia offers a convivial dining environment and first-rate service. The food isn’t cheap. In fact several dishes, like our aubergine at £8.95, are brazenly overpriced. But what do you expect? This is Morningside after all.
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