Ristorante Miro, Genoa

Truth be told, the restaurant scene in Pegli, now a district of Genoa, hadn't been grabbing us. Pasta with slow cooked, home made ragù; salsiccie con lenticche; spaghetti alla matriciana.

What's wrong with that, I hear you ask? Yes, they were all wonderful - but all made by me and eaten on our terrace watching ships and planes and sunsets.

When chum LT came to visit, she insisted on taking us out for dinner, and Miro seemed a possible candidate. It's an unassuming frontage, on a corner away from the main drag. Chookied up, we presented ourselves, casting an eye over an eccentric selection of dining companions. (Posterity does not record what they thought of us.) At the next door table, the couple seemed fine until the lady's phone went. The concept of Mr Bell's device seems to have passed her by, as her fortissimo conversation could have been heard some miles out in the bay. At the next table, whatever Quasimodo was tucking into looked very good, so we decided to stay.

Never mind. Our main waiter was Ligurian charming. We're not sure if he was related to the other front of house man whom we dubbed Mr Overall. We suspect the latter may have been the owner. Initial impressions are therefore a little mixed. You can see why I don't score based on ambience.

This may be a slur on Italian regions, but in virtually all of them one does tend to find menus which are very similar. The variation comes in the kitchen of course. Will you get the work of a bored journeyman, or nonna's (grandma's) loving genius?

The girls had the local favourite of pansotti alla salsa di noci. Pansotti are Ligurian ravioli, the filling being a combo of cheese and bitter greens. The sauce is a variation on pesto, this one having walnuts as the base. I'll try to reproduce it for Tom Cooks! one day, but so far I've found seven recipes, all wildly different. At Miro this definitely had a nonna's touch, much better than my first sample in a cafe in central Genoa itself. Penne al scampi was a plate of pasta topped with an impressive langoustine and coated in a red sauce. But such a sauce! The base was clearly made from prawn shells, with a depth and richness most of us amateur cooks can only dream of. There was the tiniest hint of chilli. With inferior plates of pasta you can find yourself getting bored half way through. Not here. The sophistication and syncopation of this kitchen's swing band  would have had you dancing all night.

(As an aside, ladies, when asking for penne please do NOT mispronounce, otherwise your waiter will giggle. Remove one n and you are ordering the male organ.)

When it comes to mains, or secondi piatti, the menu assumes ambitious proportions. It's in two sections, the fish part having a whopping 16 choices. They make this achievable by keeping most dishes simple. In carnivorous mode, we moved to part two (carne), the order being veal all round. Cotoletta Milanese is a long term favourite of mine. Not the finest example of all time (forty something years on, that accolade still belongs to Cosmo's, of blessed memory, in Edinburgh's Castle Street), but not half bad. A clean sweep of veal dishes, with lemon and Marsala respectively on the other side of the table.

Good chips too, but I made sure the ladies ordered their own. I once lunched with a relative stranger. Both the dishes ordered came with chips. Oh, none for me, chirped my lunch companion, I'll just have some of yours. Yes, SP, I do mean you. My response was unprintable in a family column.

The dessert menu, although we didn't go there, was more interesting than the average Italian dolce selection. In the kitchen is a cakemaker. You can have them of the pear or the cheese or the saker (Italian spelling) variety. You can have cake of the day or, staying local, you could try sacripantina. This Ligurian specialty is a three layer sponge with two different fillings, which could be cream or hazelnut or even zabaglione. Bunet or bonet is a chocolate cream caramel dish from Piedmont to the north, and I suspect that the Florentines would lay claim to the Cantucci e Passito. Cantucci are a variation on amaretto biscuits. The name comes from their sharp angular shape, which in turn comes from the name of narrow alleys in old Florence. They're served with a glass of sweet wine.

It's so nice to have an Italian dessert menu that I'm now regretting not diving in. We meant to return, but didn't have time. We were there for only a month, after all. Maybe next time.