Magari, Wapping Wharf: ‘Fun to eat and to look at’ – restaurant review

The weather can’t make its mind up when I visit Wapping Wharf, but I’m hoping the new addition to the bustling cargo will be more decisive.

Magari is a self-proclaimed pasta workshop. The menu is short; a statement of sauce. Puttanesca, something blue, ragu and pomodoro.

As mentioned on the sign outside, simple recipes allowing the ingredients to shine. Italian cooking is a way of life; I love their ability to meditate on the simple. Although with so few dishes, Magari are going to have to do them extremely well if they want to keep people coming back.

I start with cream of cod (£4.5) on toast. Served like canapés, squares of bread with a mashed-cod creme fraiche creation.

It’s inoffensive – not unpleasant but rather tame. I imagine lemon, dill, capers or a slightly sweet olive oil could have transformed it into something more memorable.

The ‘cream of cod’ needs a little work if it is to be worthy of stealing previous stomach space from pasta.

On the pasta front I am gunning for the ragu made with jolly hog sausage (£10.5) and my heart and stomach sink when I hear it’s already sold out, at 1pm. It is to be puttanesca (£9) then, olives, capers, breadcrumbs and tomato.

I’m given a choice of two shapes of pasta; ‘shells’ and ‘long squiggly ones’ are the technical terms confidently reeled off behind the counter. I opt for long squiggly ones and silently apologise to the Italian gods. Important to note that the shells are vegan and apparently all shapes are available gluten free.

The verdict; it’s good. The pasta is excellent. The long squiggles are cooked al dente, their tentacles do an excellent job of slurping up the sauce and they’re fun, both to eat and to look at.

The sauce is inauspicious; the olives are seductive, the breadcrumbs a smart textural addition, but the high salt content has me reaching for my water glass every few mouthfuls.

Many puttanesca recipes feature anchovies, this doesn’t but it’s probably a good job because any more salt and my eyes would have been watering.

There’s no denying that the puttanesca is pleasing on the eye!

To drink (you’ll need one) with your pasta you’ll find sharing carafes of Aperol Spritz, wine, local beers and a few soft drinks including Sicilian lemonade.

I can’t imagine many better places to spend a lazy afternoon drinking Aperol Spritz, especially with ample nearby carbs to soak it up. The tables outside bask in the summer sun at lunchtime, although it does make me wonder how it will fare in colder months being so small inside.

Under the counter at Magari are trays of various shapes of pasta that are available to buy and take home, and I’m told all the sauces can be taken away too. A good option to wow dinner party guests with minimal effort.

It’s worth nipping into Magari to admire this pasta stand alone…

Ingredients are locally sourced produce where possible; the cheese comes from the shop two doors down and the coffee in the tiramisu is Bristol’s own award-winning Extract. With such quality producers in Bristol it would be rude not to really.

The menu will change seasonally depending on availability and I very much like the ethos written on the sign outside: ‘We are pleased to offer recipes rooted in tradition, free to be creative, and appropriately sustainable.’

The sign outside Magari. ‘Brisish’ – a typo or a play on British?

I am delighted that Wapping Wharf has a pasta workshop. I will certainly return to Magari to eat more of the pasta, but I hope that in the meantime there is some fine tuning on the sauce, and that they start simmering that ragu in larger quantities. Then again, they never claimed to be a sauce workshop…

All photos: Meg Houghton-Gilmour 

Magari, Unit 18, Cargo, Wapping Wharf, BS1 6ZA
@magaribristol

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