Small children screamed with delight, getting an early biology lesson, and women hooted with laughter.

As all the window space had been taken I pelted down the stairs and caught a quick glimpse of polony and a disappearing rump.

There's never a dull moment on Eccy Road, is there?

You'll have guessed this was the Sunday of the nude cycle ride from Endcliffe Park.

Last year this page told of Taste chef-patron Marco Zerboni's take on the English breakfast, with a tongue in cassata version of the good old fry-up (with Tuscan baked beans, garlic and roast tomatoes) as well as more authentic Italian regional dishes.

Well now Marco, who also runs bistro nights on Friday and Saturdays, is also taking on the English Sunday lunch.

Only he's doing his the Italian way.

As they call it in Italy, pranzo della Domenica. Sounds nicer that way.
Taste is the upmarket cafe Marco acquired from Jamie Bosworth over last year, after first appearing in Sheffield as the baker and patissier at Nonna's just along the road.

Now Sunday lunch is as big a family occasion in Italy as it is here, so it seemed only fitting that most of the upstairs room was taken over by a family party, but they managed to squeeze us in.

You can sit downstairs but no one really tackles lunch perched on a bar stool although, on a very hot day, the roadside tables were being used by pranzo eaters. In fact, because of the heat I was fearing it was not the right time for a roast, but the open door by the fire exit wafted in a gentle breeze.

There are just a couple of choices each for the first and second courses – but if you make it to the sweets Marco shows his more floury side with a selection of pastries.

Three courses cost £15 and, as the place is not licensed, you can bring along a bottle for £2 corkage.

I began with a cannelini bean, courgette and pesto soup, some of the beans pureed with the courgette, which had a good full-on flavour with the pesto giving things extra zizz.

The alternative is a pasta dish, bucattini (thi
nk hollow spaghetti) with a really excellent ragu of pork and lamb.
Marco doesn't stint on the pasta nor the sauce, which was extremely rich and intense, so much that you didn't quickly forget it after a mouthful.

It was obviously a pork and lamb day because they were my roast meats, two big slices of each.

If you'd have had either of them in a pub on a Sunday you would have raved about them.

To have both was greedy but gorgeous. The porchetta, two thickly cut slices of pork belly with good crackling and a fiery, fennel seed-spiked stuffing, was terrific.

But I'd have a hard job deciding whether it was better than the lamb, equally intense in flavour, served with it.
I had a hard job eating all of it and it was wrapped up to eat cold for my tea the following day.

The alternative is vegetarian strudel, which sounds boring but was actually quite superb, with a lively filling of potato, mushroom and spinach inside a light, dry, flaky pastry.

Both dishes came with roast potatoes and roast tomatoes.

We couldn't decide which of the assiette of sweets and pastries we liked best: zuppa Inglese, cassata Siciliana (sponge, orange blossom, chocolate and marzipan), sfagliatella, chocolate and walnut cake and coconut macaroon, so we decided to like them all.

The surroundings might not be the best – this was a meal that you ached to eat in a vineyard or on a terrace – but you couldn't fault the food or the price.

We paid £33.90.


655 Ecclesall Road, Sheffield.
Tel: 0114 268 7356.
Open for breakfast and meals during the day. Bistro Fri-Sat. Sun lunch. Closed Mon.
Credit cards. Upstairs restaurant. Vegetarian meals. Child friendly. Upstairs toilet. Street parking.
My Sunday lunch rating (out of five): 5
Do not compare ratings between places of different style or price.


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