Life

Eating In: Timing was against Nico’s restaurant but everything else is in its favour

Nico's Pizza Pasta takeaway on Belfast's Sunnyside Street. Picture by Mal McCann
Nico's Pizza Pasta takeaway on Belfast's Sunnyside Street. Picture by Mal McCann Nico's Pizza Pasta takeaway on Belfast's Sunnyside Street. Picture by Mal McCann

Nico’s Pizza Pasta

61 Sunnyside Street

Belfast

BT7 3ED

028 9030 0192

mynicos.co.uk

IF TIMING really is everything, then Nico’s Pizza Pasta could hardly have gotten things more wrong. Not their fault, not in the slightest, but opening the doors of your shiny new restaurant all of seven days before Boris Johnson tells people they shouldn’t be going to restaurants, like many things associated with the prime minister, falls into the ‘couldn’t make it up’ category.

The Lisburn Road place was a first foray into full service sit-down dining, with Nico’s having operated takeaways in various spots across the city for years.

During that time they built the reputation of some of the best pizza in the city too, doubly impressive as pizza is something Belfast has done increasingly well in recent years.

Fancy burgers may have been the hipster takeout explosion of choice, but it’s in pizza that the quality choices have really shone over the past couple of years, from Scottish imports Pizza Punks and Tony Macaroni, through local standard bearers Pizza Boutique, Pizza on the Square and the longer established Little Wing.

The new premises would have immediately vaulted Nico’s into that company, and well above some of it, because even before they set down permanent roots, the quality of their offering stood crust and shoulders above what you’d expect from the cardboard box of a takeaway pizza.

Despite the obvious shock to the system of lockdown, Nico’s did at least have the advantage of being able to hit he ground running in lockdown. While other places worked out how to change their business model and bring pizza, or whatever, to the people, Nico’s doubled down on what they already did best, expanded their delivery area and continued to churn out gloriousness from their takeaway on Sunnyside Street in the south of the city.

Nico’s succeeds by having everything absolutely on point. For a start it arrived at the door just the right side of blistering hot, an overlooked achievement for any takeaway, especially pizza. Nothing with melted cheese on it will be as just right as in the time between the cheese slackening to an ooze and starting to pull itself together again.

So when these arrive any notions of making them wait until the trough of equally piping chicken wings that had been planned as a starter was emptied went out the window.

The dough is thin, but not so thin you’re dealing with a cream cracker. There’s still chew all the way from the middle to the pillowed, blistered crust. The standard margarita is flawless in only the way something so simple, so well executed can be. There’s a sweetness to the sauce, and there’s not too much of it, while the cheese isn’t overloaded either.

Everything balances beautifully, and even when toppings like goat’s cheese or surprisingly delicate crushed garlic potatoes (spuds on a pizza can be a magical thing) come into play, nothing is too much, and nothing hides the excellence of the canvas.

So, it’s no shock that when little icing sugar-dusted balls of that dough are dredged through Nutella you’re transported to a happy place.

Wings, like burgers, are a favourite of exposed brick, distressed wood, bearded dude school of modern eating out. And, like burgers, everywhere loves to make grandiose claims about their bucket being the best in the town or, God help us, “famous”.

Nico’s wings simply sit there on the menu, next to their eponymous pizza and pasta. But they are – grandiose claim klaxon – the best chicken wings I’ve had on this side of the Atlantic. They should be as famous as date night in the Knowles-Z household.

Separated into the flat and the drum so they maintain a crisp edge while being cooked through, like the pizza they survive the trip very well – to be fair, the delivery distance isn’t far – with that crunch remaining under the robe of a simple, vinegar-laden sauce, the original Buffalo, New York recipe of Frank’s hot sauce and butter, which places that try too hard can often turn their nose up at. But done well it can’t be beaten, and Nico’s does it extremely well.

There’s pasta too, penne wrapped in a duvet of thick tomato sauce, one with slivers of chilli and little meatballs, another funky with garlic, spinach and mushrooms. The volume and heft of sauce makes them feel more within the Italian-American notion of pasta than that of the old country, but that’s no bad thing. The ingredients are again clearly of quality, and the result is, again, bang on.

After its false start in March, Nico’s has reopened its shiny new restaurant on the Lisburn Road, but whether you visit or let them come to you, you’ll find food well worth your time.

THE BILL

Large margarita pizza £7.30

Goat’s cheese, caramelised onion, rocket pizza £8.15

Nico’s pizza £8.20

Spicy meatball pasta £7.45

Penne giadiniera £7.20

14 Chicken wings £7.50

Chips £2.90

Nutella dough balls £3.50

Delivery fee £2.50

Just Eat service charge £0.50

Total £55.20