Mad for Garlic

Those with a penchant for spice – or with no need to pucker up that night – should make a date at this new Italian by-way-of-Korea eatery, where garlic is featured in almost every dish. This chain attempts to breathe new life into standard pasta, pizza and rice dishes.

The Garlicpeno pasta is tossed in garlic oil, rosemary, hot peppers, and crunchy slices of fried garlic, resulting in flavour-packed spaghetti with a lip-smacking afterburn.

The novel Garlic Snowing Pizza is a delicious blend of shrimp, pineapple and garlic cream sauce. The ‘snow’ is shaved live at the table from a block of fresh grana padano cheese. With most dishes having a ‘spice factor’, the signature Yuja-ade – a drink made from the Korean citrus fruit – will quench any lingering flames. But you should still keep breath mints on hand, just in case. Marc Checkley