In this and the next two posts we go back to the real vocation of our blog: Italian food. We want to show you various embodiments of it that we've sampled in recent travels, from the simplest trattoria to a certain 'Osteria' which in fact offers the best high end Italian dining in the world... Our Italian gastronomic mini-trip begins...in London. Briciole, which opened less than a year ago (reviewed here) is now in full flow and continues to serve simple, authentic fare that if you closed your eyes would make you think you are in Italy. Like these tagliolini with broccoli and ricotta
or these pappardelle with (a very generous amount of!) a succulent ragu'
Pasta is very well made here - not surprising given that the mothership is Maurizio Morelli's Latium.
The polpette in 'pizzaiola' (featuring great tomatoes) and the sausages continue to be addictive
It is only with an enormous exertion of willpower that you can stop eating them.
But just as you do...temptation is behind the corner, this time in the form of more exalted seasonal delicacies: fresh, chunky porcini, playing their earthy magics with a succulent, properly cooked (i.e., little) tagliata of Galloway beef
Italian cuisine is strongly produce based and we like the idea of getting the good things that can be sourced where you are, rather than being obsessive in sourcing exclusively Italian products. This Galloway was great and this was one of the best tagliate we've had.
Briciole is fantastic value for money for food, but it is a veritable Heaven for the wine lover. We know of no other place in the UK where wines are so kindly priced. So it happens that you can drink stuff which would break the bank in London fine (and not so fine, too) dining restaurants, while here it just requires that extra effort:
On the alcohol front, there are other interesting temptations. Needless to say, we succumbed. This time it was a Sambuca and a liquorice based concoction where the core aromas leapt at you with marvellous clarity and intensity
Briciole is a place that it's easy to love, when you're in the mood for the sheer joy of uncomplicated Italian cuisine, be it a bite from the gastronomy corner or a full meal.
And if you want something fancier in terms of cooking and presentation, remember, Latium is still there... (Our usual reminder for posts like this that read a bit like ads: we always pay for the meal - although as also always happens everywhere, loyal custom tends to be acknowledged with some extra "attention" ;-) ). Home
The venue: Apsleys-A Heinz Beck Restaurant, The Lanesborough
The food: Modern Italian
The drinks: Luxury list but also by the glass and more easy-going options.
(Added January 2010: Apsleys has been awarded its first Michelin star)
One day after the very impressive Hibiscus, we set off again from our humble base in gritty East London towards the bright lights of Central London. We honestly weren’t expecting this Heinz Beck venue, for all the chef’s fame and his 3* at ‘home’ in Rome, to top our lunch at Hibiscus.
Little did we know we were in for a truly stellar lunch, in an elegant, comfortable, spacious, light-filled, no-expenses-spared, room.
An unpromising start with the waiter frantically trying to read the label, unable to tell us clearly where the two olive oils on offer come from (Imola, Florence…uhm). But from then on it will be a steep and endless rise to the sky.
The bread is – of course- home-made, coming in several varieties, including cereal and olives. Very tasty, and well made, touching both the bodily and the ethereal. The latter, a most refined version of Sardinian pane ‘carasau’, much thinner than the standard one, probably obtained by brushing a ‘batter’ on the baking sheet (very similar to what we had another very fine restaurant). This bread deserves a photo.
The amuse bouche takes us by storm.
A ‘pannacotta’ with olive tapenade and tomato concasse’, veal terrine with mustard seeds and candied Kumquat. Soft flavours, temperatures and textures, yet vibrant and fresh. The cheesy pannacotta plays well indeed with the two flavours. Great. (we wonder: where does he get tomatoes in December?).
Mellowed down by the food and the relentlessly charming waiter, we are all salivating expectations. He tempts us with a white truffle put under our nose (mercifully he does not say ‘from Alba’) but, even though inebriated by the noble smell, that lingers on well after he has taken the precious treasure away, we opt not to go bankrupt.
The primi establish beyond doubt that pasta can be pure fine dining. There were the celebrated ‘fagottelli carbonara’ (more on this story later).
And there was an unbelievable rabbit reduction in
Ravioli of rabbit and pistachio
That reduction, so intense but not heavy; the ravioli, well filled and simply wonderful, among the best we’ve ever eaten. Just wanting to be picky, the pistachio plays, surprisingly, a bit second fiddle here – we were expecting some crunchy textures and a more definite appearance in the form of flavour.
Will a lamb have been slaughtered and a pigeon shot for a good cause?
Yes, yes, yes!
Lamb crepinette
The movingly tender, moist, flavoursome lamb is enclosed in a crepe (egg and cheese) and spinach leaves. The warm provola cheese layered over aubergines adds power and a subtly bitter note, and the finely finely chopped peppers with the courgettes green are sweetly delicious. A stunning, boldly flavoured, beautiful looking dish rooted in tradition and taken much higher. (we wonder: where does he get the pepper and aubergines in December?).
Pigeon Royal
Once again, this pigeon’s cooking deserves the adjective ‘perfect’ (the breast poached and the leg slow-roasted).Very far reaching flavours all round, multidimensional, with an unadvertised rhubarb compote sublimely acidic and an added foie gras a seductive smooth, rich match for the gamey, earthy meat. And the succulent pearl onions, and the mustard seed sauce. What balance. What power.
We share one dessert. We’re glad about this decision as the specimen turns out to be a giant one:
Ricotta cannoli, cassata and Sharon fruit sorbet
Sicily reigns in this dish, the ricotta from stratosphere and encapsulated in the classiest of crispy cannoli, the pistachios now screaming flavour and texture, and we actually wanted to scream (of pleasure) after tasting an added glass of almond milk. The sorbet is not sweet which, in a dessert with plenty of sugar, makes for the right balance.
The petit four accompanying our (excellent) coffees spans an impressive range in terms of flavours, textures and recapitulate several regional Italian traditions: gianduiotto, pistachio and almond meringue with berry compote, ricciarelli, raspberry sugar, brownie. Simply excellent.
The service
Friendly, polite, attentive, unintrusive. We just wonder, miserable picky sods that we are, why in a restaurant of this class and obvious ambitions, they do not iron the tablecloths.
The low
What low?
The high
Fagottelli carbonara
We could not believe it. We could not believe that this famous signature dish was as good as it was. This is genious. The carbonara eggs springing in your mouth when you bite into the entire fagottello picked up rigorously with your spoon, the absolute balance, the perfect seasoning, the rustic, often heavy tradition brought to unprecedented heights and delicacy, the vivid colours (that courgette green again): this dish has it all. It moved us and it will remain in our tasting memories. (we wonder: where does he get courgettes in December?).
The Price
There’s a 3 course lunch menu at £45 including a starter version of the fagottelli. We went a la carte with two starters, two mains, a shared dessert, water, coffees and just a glass of wine and paid £145 (including the usual 12.5% discretionary service charge). A fuller a la carte meal with a basic wine will set you back around £200 for two, which, in truth, is fair for such cuisine (we must remark the generous portions, too). Tasting menus at £65 and £85.
Conclusion
Heinz Beck is a genius and this London enterprise of his does not fail to communicate it through executive chef Massimiliano Blasone and the rest of the team. This cuisine attains the clearest and most potent flavours and is never heavy, never unbalanced, never showy or egotistic. We are glad that London has such a true superstar, heavy calibre Italian cuisine restaurant.
We had meant to try Dolada for a while, as recommendations came to us from more than one quarter. Well, as often happens, high expectations led to bitter (literally: read on) disappointment. We just did not see the point of this place, formerly known as Mosaico (endearingly this name was still printed on the bill we received) and we are going to tell you why.
We begin well, the tables very comfortable, the room very inviting, warm (red wood) and pleasant, except for the people, including over-wealthy youth and boorish business apes.
A very promising amuse is brought to us by a waiter who, in the vain attempt to describe it, mutters some incomprehensible words. It is obvious he hasn’t the faintest idea what it it is, except that it definitely looks like an egg ‘a la coque’. Anyway, fittingly enough the amuse is amusing, the inside being a ‘scrambled egg white’ onion jam. It is airy, it is tasty, it is fun, it is velvety and luscious.
We like chefs who make a statement with their amuse, and Riccardo dal Pra, starred in Italy with a restaurant by the same name, definitely wants you to know what type of cuisine he stands for.
Expectations are set even higher.
And then everything comes down with a crashing flop.
Maybe we should have gone for the tasting menu, which includes the famous pizza glu-glu, the trademark drinkable pizza in which the basic components, mozzarella, basil and tomato are liquefied and separated and therefore drunk from a special bottle. Maybe we should have left Dal Pra fully express his jocular vein.
But we didn’t. And the rest of the dinner was not bad, but entirely forgettable. For example:
Tagliatelle with crab and truffle (£22)
The tagliatelle are well-made in terms of texture though rather too thick and heavy. No class. The flavours overlap rather than marry. Compared with the wonderful truffles we are used to (black and white), for example, at Latium, and the crab we can buy superfresh just 100 yards of where we live (no, not London) the performance is barely OK, rather a waste of the noble materials; and look at the price: we want to part from our hard-earned cash for the sake of taste, not the name of the ingredient.
And this:
Cuttlefish salad (£12)
The dish is pretty and looks humourous and, more importantly, like a good idea (the green sauce you see on the bottom is broccoli). But it turns out to be no more. The flavours are far from the promise of the looks. The tomato is sad, and the dish is in fact insipid. And the cuttlefish is even a little overcooked.
We were hoping with our:
Fish soup (£18)
Pretty, once again, but oh how lame! With all those materials inside, how could he achieve such a lack of deep flavours, of concentration? But the worst is still to come…
After a non-stop disappointment with starter, pasta and two mains we are in no mood for dessert, although we are kindly treated to the fun ‘petit four’, which are impressive enough.
The service
There is a service issue here, in that the waiters lower down the scale from the manager and the senior one do not seem to understand what they are serving. Also, the active request of whether you want to have pepper added to your dish is more fitting of a pizzeria than of a restaurant of this level, and is perhaps telling of the clientele they expect.
The low: Pan-fried cod with Sicilian cous cous (£18)
If so far the rest of the food had been just substandard for the hype and the price, this cod is really disastrous. The texture is dry and cardboardish, the taste is bitter (the skin). And the whole dish looks maladjusted, not standing together: just the two main materials juxtaposed to each other, with traces of (burned, as you can see) vegetables and thin liquid. What kind of a dish is this in a fine dining restaurant?
The high
There was the beginning, the amuse of ‘egg a la coque’, and no more. If we were intellectuals we could quote the opening from one of T.S. Eliot’s quartets, ‘In my beginning is my end...’*
The price
Expect £150 for a three course meal for two with a lower end wine, tasting menu at £55.
Conclusion
Never judge a restaurant from a single visit, they say. Maybe we found a bad night. But we cannot forget or forgive that Chef Dal Pra was right there, not in his starred Italian venue, and he allowed those bland (and on one occasion poor) dishes to go through the pass - did he not see the burnt veggies, for example? Our impression was one of somebody much concerned about show, fun and appearance (in the tasting menu) but not focussed on delivery in terms of detail and big flavours, at least in the regular dishes. Sorry, given the bloated prices, for us this is it: we won’t be back.
* Which ominously continues (slightly adapted for the occasion):
…In succession Restaurants rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass…
The place: 119, Sydney Street, LondonSW3 6NR (020-7352 2718)
The venue: Il Giardino
The food: Refined Italian Trattoria
The drinks: Short Italian based list, wide price range starting from below £20
A really cold night in an empty London is the best time to brave the non-existent traffic and cross the city, heading to a recent Italian opening in Chelsea. At least this was the argument Woman used to persuade Man, hell-bent on trying Bocca di Lupo again (yes, you’ve guessed it, our fave was closed), to try this new joint. It is next door to Chelsea’s farmer’s market on a quiet residential street. The name means ‘garden’, and indeed they do have an outside garden which must be truly handsome in summer… but not with tonight’s subzero temperatures. The inside is stark whites, creams and black, with proper tablecloths and well spaced tables
We are totally alone: lucky we booked, or they might have closed for the night ;-)
Our young host is nice and kind, but there is an air akin to what we experienced at Trenta, with questions shouted down the stairs to the chef. OK, we’ll live with the trattoria style, Woman tries to cheer Man’s uncompromising I-told-you-so-mood. This is not helped by either the water (appearing in a half litre form, o dear!) nor the menu.
Indeed things were looking on the up when inspection of the carte revealed a short but interesting array of simple and varied dishes, and Man had already settled on the ‘Duck sauce home made potato gnocchi’ (£9 or £11, presumably depending on size) and ‘Home made cappellacci pasta with pumpkin, butter and sage’ (£11). But then disaster strikes, our gentle young host tells us that there has been a fault with their fridge, no fresh pasta is available. Man is looking darker and darker…Uhm, ever optimist Woman inquires about the provenance of the fish in the ‘Marinated swordfish and tuna with olive oil and thyme’, and, after a quick shout down the stairs, we are reassured that yes, the fish comes from the Mediterranean sea, and anyhow ‘all our products come from Italy, including pasta, either De Cecco or Barilla, you know…’: oops, a quick glance to Man, and De Cecco and Barilla all in one breath has yet again dampened his spirit.
Just at the right time, canapes arrive, in the form of a marinara (anchovies, capers, oregano, tomato but no cheese) and margherita pizza slices and some nice fat olives.
The pizza base was slightly soggy, but the whole was tasty, and worked out nice while waiting for our starters.
First comes the bread:
Herb focaccia and ‘Ferrarese’ like bread, that is with a white, compact yet fluffy crumb, good.
And then our starters. We finally had settled for:
-Marinated swordfish and tuna with olive oil and thyme (£8)
-Black ink risotto with grilled cuttlefish (£11)
Well, very generous portions here, which will prove a leitmotif of the evening. The fish carpaccio was really very good: the swordfish, and above all the tuna, were a concentrate of hints from the sea in the guise of the lightest of slices, and the dressing of fine olive oil, capers, thyme and pepper was very well judged, complementing rather than smothering the two main protagonists. Honestly, this delight of a dish wins hands down with the timid tuna carpaccio at the far more revered 1 Lombard street! And it looked good, too: and so Man is beginning to look happy again…
And the risotto was also very good: perfectly cooked, nicely al dente and at the same time rightly creamy, flavoursome, topped by a very fresh cuttlefish which had been grilled to perfect consistency: quite a joy to eat, Man looking all smiles now, so much so that Woman can slip in ‘and there are tablecloths here’, at which Man points out to a tear in the tablecloth, so Woman quickly changes topic…
Yet we are both in an expectant mood for our mains. We resist the temptation of the Pan fried calf liver with onions (£13.50) and Lobster and prawns guazzetto (the most expensive item on the menu at £16), and instead opt for:
-Grilled baby squids with fresh chilli peppers (£11)
-Ossobuco alla Milanese (£14.50)
The squids: a very generous portion (must have been nine of them) of flawlessly grilled squids, with the fresh chili peppers providing a nice hit while still playing second fiddle, enhancing the fragrant squids. Man, now almost ecstatic (Man: naah), is reminiscing of Da Barbara. Good olive oil as before, only far too much of it, creating a veritable pool in which the rocket had all the room to splash around, oh this is not classy… But then again this is witness to the generosity of the kitchen (good oil is expensive).
This theme continues in the ossobuco dish: we were surprised by the amount of tomato (here is the way WE make it...), but it did work fine in the end on the nice, tasty, tender piece of veal sitting on a large cushion of properly cooked saffron risotto, with loads of saffron stems, also intensely pleasing on the palate. One slip here, too, excess of fats in the condiment, but after all this is a rather rustic dish.
The fight over the marrow in the ‘buco’ over, of course we still have enough room left for desserts, which we are assured are all home made (actually, this is what we expected, but we told you already our sweet waiter appears still a bit naïve). These go from the £4 of the ‘affogato al caffe’ (i.e. vanilla ice cream doused in coffee) to the £12 of the sweet selection – and the coffee with petit fours is a very reasonable £2.75.
Our choice:
-Dolce all’amaretto (£5.5)
-Delizia al cioccolato (£5.5)
The amaretto dessert was made up of an amaretto pannacotta and an amaretto parfait. Two problems here: true, ‘amaro’ means bitter in Italian, and amaretti biscuits are prepared with some bitter almonds, to give them their interesting tang. But here the bitter note is truly overpowering, the bitter aftertaste definitely too much. And, the pannacotta suffers from that too common ailment, the excess of thickening, which drops to the bottom and leaves the ‘fluffy’ bits on top (before it is unmoulded, that is), as you can see from the picture (remember the pannacotta here?). Pity.
With the half litre bottle of water acceptably priced at £2, and a bottle of easy drinking Aglianico at £23, our total bill including 12.5% service charge came to £90.56, which excludes a complimentary glass of Limoncello obtaining by charming the charming waiters. Not super cheap, but balance this with super generous portions, excellent ingredients, well appointed interiors (and yes, tablecloths!), presumably high rent in Chelsea, and it starts looking very reasonable. (In the end, a couple more tables trickled in, and we truly hope they managed to more than cover their costs on the night.)
The odd swearword exchanged between the waiter and the maitre d' or the shout to the chef Marco Solaro down (or up?) in the kitchen aside, service was charming and warm, from both the waiter and the attentive Maitre d'. You won’t find here the impeccable service that blesses other places where you can eat for around £100 (but those rarities are champions in value for money which puts them off any scale).
So, once you concede that in London even trattorias have to be expensive, this is definitely one new place to recommend, where a competent chef stays well within his comfort zone and prepares, simply and properly, ingredients of high quality. This IS good Italian cuisine (of the trattoria style). Sure, you will not find here the long and varied menu, nor maybe the study of details that Bocca di Lupo has on offer, but the style and quality (and quantity) that you find here surpasses easily that of the celebrated and more expensive Osteria dell’Arancio down the road, not to mention some award-winning celebrities who offer not much more than this at twice the price. And in Summer the outside garden must be truly inviting. In short, it is a bit too inconvenient for us Eastenders, but if you tread these grounds, make time for a visit.
...maybe after an exhausting shopping day, or maybe just because you're lucky enough to live there, you may stumble in one of our favourite Italian restaurants in London. We’ve had several delightful dinner at Semplice (fully reviewed here). On the last occasion in December, just before our non-holiday, we tried, for example, these memorable pheasant ravioli with potato sauce
To non-Italians such a type of dish may look overly rich in carbs, and while this might well be the case in pure dietary terms (not that it has harmed us so far)…on the palate there is really no sense of imbalance, the dense, starchy texture and sweet aroma of the potato sauce forming a really apt ligature for the freshly made pasta and the fragrant game filling.
And just to keep our carb intake at our needed levels for the night…we were also blown away by this perfect execution
of egg Sedanini with venison ragout in a black cabbage sauce. The picture and the colour perhaps convey something of the depth of flavour of a properly made pasta and ragout. This is a dish of both heartiness and composure.
They say at Semplice that the pasta is made every day. Opinions split as to whether one can really detect the difference between pasta made on the day and pasta that has been frozen (as most Italian restaurants, even the best, normally do, for obvious logistics reasons). At home we regularly freeze the excess pasta we make. Be that as it may, we merely underscore the integrity and conviction of a restaurant where such laborious practices are followed.
At the end of the meal (which also included a lot of proteins, e.g. in the form of this mouthwatering beast (do take a guess at what it is):
we are treated to a sample of a semi-hard cheese from the Val Brembana, with a nice brioche
whose one thousand aromas blew us away. This is ‘alpeggio’ cheese: made from milk of cows grazing on pastures at altitude in the Alps: and it does make a difference! The Italian cheese list at Semplice is probably the most interesting in London (together with the one here), worth a trip on its own if you want to learn about Italian cheeses. Semplice have now expanded to a nearby ‘Trattoria’, where simpler food is served in a more informal setting: more on this story later!
By the way, they have just received a Michelin star: congratulations to Marco Torri and all his staff.
