Sotto Enoteca and Trattoria is an Italian wine bar and restaurant in the heart of Edinburgh's foodie epicentre of Stockbridge. Sotto is led by Edinburgh-native and sommelier James Clark, formerly of The Palmerston and Divino Enoteca, and head chef Francesco Ascrizzi, who hails from Calabria by way of the kitchens of Divino Enoteca and Mono and Tipo. Sotto is a restaurant containing multitudes: in the mornings, it operates as an espresso bar and a weekend brunch spot. Then when afternoon comes, the upstairs transforms into a wine bar serving light bites, and the downstairs into a trattoria.
Sotto’s menu is a celebration of Italian cookery using seasonal British ingredients. Things start off with a selection of snacks in keeping with the wine bar theme of the place, before moving onto antipasti. This involves a selection of gnocchi fritto with culatello, stracciatella and rocket, beef carpaccio, and Sgombro e Cipolline - pickled mackerel with tropea onions and pine nuts.
The primi section offers a solid mix of comforting pastas - the perfect antidote to Edinburgh’s weather. There’s a rigatoni alla norma, topped with salted ricotta, mezze maniche with a venison ragu, and an indulgent tagliatelle with porcini and truffles. For something more substantial, there’s a lamb shoulder with aubergine, Sole served in a caper butter with salsa verde, and a charred cauliflower with capers and sun-dried tomato.
As would be expected given Clark’s vinous origins, wine is taken seriously at Sotto, including regular wine tastings and evenings advertised on their Instagram. Even the name is a homage to this: ‘sotto’, meaning ‘under’, is a reference to the 200-bottle wine cellar beneath the building. Thanks to this rather hefty cellar, there's an ample selection of Italian wines by the bottle, as well as a few minimal-intervention Australian varieties from Clark’s brother-in-law’s vineyards in South Australia. A slightly slimmer by-the-glass list is also on offer, and guests will also be able to buy bottles of wine and pickled goods to take away.