Casa Gio - new Italian place with homemade pasta

A friend of ours (also known as Team Vatland) told us that a new Italian place called Casa Gio had opened up in Stavanger and Nikki and I decided to check it out on a Thursday evening. I love my Italian food and as you can see from the homepage http://gardkarlsen.com , we have been to Italy several times. I tried to search for the restaurant on the internet before going there and I could not find any information at all – not even the address. But Stavanger is not that big so I did find it based on the info that we had gotten from our friend. When I walked into Casa Gio it was actually larger than what I had expected – there is about 20 seats in the main room and then some tables in a sort of covered courtyard. Behind the counter I got a full view of the kitchen and the two women working there greeted me hello. Turns out that one is from Italy and the other one from Peru – and it seems like it is the Peruvian that is Gio. I just assumed that it was the other way around.

The menu was not that extensive and it was written on the blackboard next to the counter. It seems like their intention is to change the menu frequently so that people don’t get bored – and that sounds like a great concept. They did have regular coffee items on the menu and the espresso that I had was good. In addition to the coffee they also had salad of the day, soup of the day and dishes with homemade pasta. I decided to go for ravioli with a parma ham filling while Nikki decided to have the tagliatelle with a duck ragu. We got some bread to start with and as Nikki commented "this is not the bread for a date night" as it had quite a lot of garlic in it. But it was lightly salted and pretty good. It didn’t take us long to get the food either and my ravioli was simple yet delicious just like Italian food should be! The ravioli pieces were large and served with a butter sauce of some kind. They were a bit al dente and I enjoyed them but the portion was maybe a bit small. The tagliatelle was a bigger portion and also very delicious. The pasta had just a scent of saffron and the ragu was made “bologna style” if there is such a thing. I have noticed that normally the “Bolognese” sauce is quite tomato/red wine based while in Bologna is seemed like the ragu was a bit drier and less tomato based. Anyway, the tagliatelle was good. As the main dish had been a success I also decided to try out a dessert and I went for the semifreddo with rum raisins and a caramel sauce. The portion was way too big but I enjoyed it…and I did eat it all.

All in all the meal was very good and I look forward to trying this place again. They are working on making a homepage and hopefully there will be some information online soon. Note the opening hours on one of the photos – they are only open late (until 10 pm) on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. The places is located in Pedersgaten 48 if I’m not mistaken and the phone number is +47 924 38 227. Try out the place and let me know what you think - we will certainly go there again!

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures