Hyndland, with its huge sandstone flats and smart front gardens, is what most people mean when they talk about the leafy west end of Glasgow.
It's home to people who shop in Waitrose and ask each other, loudly, if they need parmesan for both houses.
The area is actually quite a small bit of what is known as the west end, which also includes social housing and branches of Lidl and Iceland.
But on Hyndland Road, the main thoroughfare, there's a row of fancy shops. These used to include the slightly scruffy Pizza Magic takeaway and an upmarket corner shop. Then Sainsbury's Local moved into the side of the block.
No one wanted to buy their milk and magazines from the wee shop any more. The owner, who also had the pizza place, made the bold decision to merge the two units and create a restaurant.
Nostrana is still centred on pizzas but also does pasta, a few sidey/startery bits and, as a nod to the former takeaway, fish and chips. There are tables out the front and round the side - it's a prime spot on a corner beside a park. During the day, people with dogs in coats sit outside drinking coffee.
Mrs Slocombe and I gave it a test drive on a Sunday evening. When we arrived, around 6.30pm, takeaway business seemed brisker than table service. Pizza Magic was a Hyndland institution and not everyone wants to sit up straight and make conversation while fighting over the last slice.
There are no actual starters but we repurposed a couple of sides and some bread. There are several options here - garlic bread, sourdough or three flavours of focaccia. We ordered the rosemary focaccia.
What arrived was a pizza base painted with garlic butter, with a few frazzled needles of rosemary. I have nothing against this type of garlic bread but it is not the oil-drenched dough pillow I asked for. What, I wondered, would happen with my bill. Garlic bread is £4, rosemary focaccia £8. They put the latter through, at the higher price.
So, a bad start. A rocket and parmesan salad was fine although I would have preferred less balsamic sploshed around.
Burrata was adequate but it came with budget supermarket grade cherry tomatoes and more blobs of balsamic. The cheese was also topped with some dried herbal matter that tasted of very little and looked like someone had emptied the mini hoover over the white ball.
Having never been to Pizza Magic, I was keen to see what kept the locals coming back. My Bee Sting was in the flat Neopolitan style, with fior de latte (a deluxe variation on mozzarella) and chunks of spicy sopressata sausage and rings of red chilli.
The promised honey was present in a pleasingly restrained amount but there was no sign of the advertised fresh basil. And I know they had some in the kitchen because there were a few springs with the burrata.
It also cost £14. This is £3 more than the most expensive pizza at the highly rated Paesano or at Pizza Basta, which I prefer. On this edible but not memorable showing, I won't be changing my allegiance.
Mrs Slocombe wanted paccheri - giant pasta tubes - with salsiccia in the tomato sauce. The pasta had been cooked a minute or two longer than I would have liked. The sausage meat had separated from the skins, which made it hard to distinguish from mince.
She is a salt fiend and found it underseasoned. My much less saline-crazed palate agreed. A hefty pelt greatly improved this.
By leaving lots of the disputed garlic bread, half my pizza and some of the flaccid pasta, we had room for dessert.
Mrs S had the vegan chocolate cake, which was forgettable and not very Italian. It was tall and light rather than the flat, dense bakes I drool over in recipe books.
Torta della Nonna - Granny's cake - is one of those simple confections that has to be perfect .
The pastry case must be Bake Off-crisp, the egg custard filling should have a pleasing wobble as well as discernible lemon and vanilla. What is unacceptable is to heat this delicate confection in the microwave, like this one seemed to have been. It made the pastry soft and damp. Plus the filling was pasty, with no lemon or vanilla that I could find.
I don't see the need for Nostrana. Pizza Magic had a role, it was a much loved local alternative to the faceless chains. Nostrana is competing - and matching prices - with a more ambitious Italian restaurant a block along. It is also more expensive and yet inferior to other dedicated pizza places in the greater west end.
The magic spell is broken.
Bill for 2: £74
Nostrana, 72 Hyndland Road, Glasgow G12 9UT
0141 339 8544
www.nostrana.co.uk
Opening hours Thursday to Tuesday, 12 noon-9pm
Food 5/10 - Underwhelming
Decor 2/5 - New but already dated
Service 3/5 - Pleasant
Toilets 4/5 - Smart and sleek
Value for money 2/5 - Pricing overambitious
