As is tradition, we find ourselves at Six By Nico during the Fringe. This year, it’s as part of a very civilised final night of the trip - no dashing back up to Old Town for a late night show, just a well-earned sit down and a glass of wine or five. By fluke of the date we’re here, it’s not the currently advertised Amalfi Coast experience but instead it’s a tasting menu dedicated to pasta. Given the quality of good pasta in Bristol, it’s got a way to go. Inevitably, the pasta itself isn’t that interesting, but there’s some fun stuff around it. We start with a deconstructed lasagne, all pecorino foam with an undercurrent of pork sauce served with a crisp of a lasagne sheet. A few ricotta ravioli in a garlic butter sauce precedes a relatively uninspired pasta and pesto with some stracchiatella. The fregula with tiger prawn, servd in a seafood bisque is a bit more interesting, but the cavatelli is weighed down by the pangrattato and loses any sense of the lamb ragu it’s meant to be served with. We double up on dessert with an optional course of gnocco fritto - not resembling the traditional ones in any way, shape, or form, more resembling actual gnocchi stuffed with chocolate and pistachio, chewy and gooey and all good stuff. The actual dessert, a lemon delice with finely diced peach and the thinnest slither of an almond sponge you’ve ever seen, is cmoparatively meh. It’s not my favourite Six By Nico menu, and not helping its case in the national debate in my mind of the whole endeavour not being worth it, but the evening is still a fun one as we debate this year’s Fringe roster and get progressively sloshed through the wine and cocktail pairings (the boys and Hazel respectively). Nostalgia is a potent drug, to Six By Nico’s benefit tonight.