Mercadante Italian Restaurant

Walking around the north end of the city yesterday, it was time for a late lunch, Lygon street seemed an obvious choice. After walking past a dozen restaurants (half of which are Italian) Mercadante looked like a pretty authentic place to grab a pizza.

We sat out the front in their big seating area, and helped ourselves to menus. After a short wait we ordered our first course, the bruscetta with fresh tomato, red onion and feta. The cocky waiter took our drink order proclaiming that they have "any beer you want!"...except apparently Coopers. He hadn't even heard of it and somehow managed to mispronounce it when saying it back to me. The beer list is modest but a Cascade Premium for $4.80 sounds pretty good to me.

The bruscetta arrived looking delicious, drizzled in olive oil and well stocked. Delicious and fresh, the dough was nice and thin but super soft. A small was more than enough to cover the 2 of us for a starter. After a fair wait our main arrived, a small pizza with potato and olives. The chunks of potato looked odd at first but on first bite we were convinced. The amazingly cooked potato almost melts in your mouth and tastes delicious. Once again the small was more than enough for the 2 of us.

Mercadante was indeed the authentic Italian restaurant we hoped for and it only set us back $35 for the 2 of us including the tip. Highly recommended.

(Photos pending)