Two courses at Arbutus

Interior

(Visited December 2012)

Squid and mackerel ‘burger’, Cornish razor clams. £11.95

Saddle of rabbit, slow cooked shoulder cottage pie, red endive, pancetta. £18.50

Squid and mackerel ‘burger’, Cornish razor clams

Saddle of rabbit, slow cooked shoulder cottage pie, red endive, pancetta

Who can complain about gutsy, easy flowing Michelin starred cuisine like this, at these prices? Well, perhaps only a morose saddo who noticed the slight excess of salt in the otherwise delicious,moist, flavour packed burger. But even he will admit that it’s not so common to eat so well in London, even aside of pricing.

spuds

We never had a poor dish here, no matter how low-cost the menu from which it was taken. If Michelin stars reward consistency in quality, Arbutus is exemplary as a deserving establishment.
Maybe Arbutus lacks the environment to be the place for a great relaxed meal in the complete sense. Everything feels a bit rushed and cramped and noisy and the waiters always appear a little inexperienced and we would not take a friend there unless she was a terminal foodie like us.  But certainly it’s one the best places we know of where to have a great lunch, especially solo (or a duo or a small bunch of foodies), straight to the point. A longer description of a (very) old meal is here.

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First grouse 2012…

…being in London, at Koffmann’s: where else?

In this year of the glorious thirteenth we were quick off the mark. We enquired whether Koffmann’s was stocked with grouses. They were due on the 15th morning from Scotland, and so there we were, ready for lunch service.

We were served their first two grouses of this season (pity they don’t have a ‘first item sold is free’ policy, like in some old shops in Rome).

It was just spectacular. No, really, spectacular. We don’t know what they do to it to obtain that wonderful texture in the pink roasted breast and legs. By the way, never forget the kitchen brigade beside the great man (who was still in Scotland that day): an applause for execution.

As you can see, the animal is resting on a slice of bread that is soaking the sticky, flavour-packed innards and the trademark dark lovely jus, that perfect match for the other potent flavours.

Definitely not baby food. This is food that strikes with force at the heart of your gustatory senses, so be prepared if you haven’t had it before.

A glimpse at the final treats…the dough of this baba’ was remarkable (Man, obviously not content with his La Peche Abusee 2004, would have liked more booze in it though):

 and the same for these superb madeleines, and butter free!!!

Oh come on, you didn’t believe that, did you? Of course they are not butter free. Actually they might define the opposite of butter free. Butter freeness is the one thing you definitely cannot ask at Koffman’s. But culinary bliss is worth a little sacrifice, every now and then.

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Alyn Williams at the Westbury (London):enigmatic

(Visited Feb 2012)


This place begins with a lie: it insists on describing itself as being located in Bond Street, while it isn’t. Resign yourselves guys, you are not in Bond street, we are not in Bond street, you at least are near it and Conduit Street where you really are is prestigious enough in our book 🙂


Everything in the newly refurbished room oozes luxury. Windowless, square, hushed luxury, to be precise. Personally we are phased by neither windowlessness nor squaredness nor hushedness, but some might get that slightly claustrophobic feeling of being in one of those joyless temples of gastronomy whose sole function is to allow the adoration of the chef (now who used this phrase already?) rather than to please the customer.

 

Well, some nibbles of Fourme d’Ambert gougeres as well as the bread threaten to immediately enrol us among the worshippers: they are wonderful. The gougeres have an extraordinary texture, at the same time airy and substantial, with an intense cheesy flavour. 

And the bread is made really, really well (a potato sourdough, a Guinness and star anise one, and a crispy flatbread similar to ‘cartamusica’ perhaps in appearance, though in fact totally different).

With such a spectacular beginning perhaps we set our expectations too high.

Yes, a Langoustine/fennel custard skin/cider apple/chestnut/smoked eel starter was very fresh and aromatic, the sweet flavour of the large langoustines matched by the more robust eel. But we felt it was served far too cold, especially the already rather timid bisque. A waiter assured us in very decisive fashion that this is how Chef wants it. We are perplexed. 

Chef is, by the way, but you probably have guessed it already, Alyn Williams of Marcus Wareing restaurant fame, somebody with such an eminent pedigree that we hesitate to proffer our ignorant criticisms. Yet we are the customers and the supposedly ultimate goal of his existence: so we will persist.

A Veal sweetbread/artichokes/celery/sherry is lonely, but cooked to perfection, with an amazing texture, nicely supported by the sherry, a real feat of cooking unachievable by mere mortals. So why is the artichoke puree merely nice and a little tame? The circle of vegetables around the lonely sweetbread is pretty, and prissy.

Grilled brill/squid ink/ricotta/cuttlefish/Puntarella/smoked lardo is finely cooked with a nice charcoal note, however (and we are beginning to notice there is always a however) the diced cuttlefish while pretty is unexpectededly a little rubbery, and its ink, salty (we guess, it was cooked by a different, less gifted hand than the god who produced the sweetbread). A nice, imperfect, good, unspectacular dish.

In the other main of Salisbury plain Venison/barley malt/acorn/choucroute/mandarin the sliced venison was excellent, with deep flavour and sous-vided to nice elastic tenderness. The microbits of mandarin seemed a little pointless in the grand scheme of things, but we don’t doubt there was a deep cheffy reason for their presence, as well as for all the other ingredients small and large, among which we found the krauts, sorry, choucroute which sounds far more refined, very pleasant. 

A pre-dessert of Crème Catalan/pear granita/pine sugar does not work in our opinion, too much contrast between the two main components, and the pine fails to shine (ask this guy for how to extract flavour from pine, we still remember his aromatic and balsamic pannacottas after years!).

Turning to desserts, Banana/Lapsang tea/Coconut/saffron/condensed milk had a very delicate Lapsang flavour, we’d have expected it to be more assertive. It was a very good and beautiful dessert, and well crafted, yet lacking a killer punch.

The other dessert is a sumptuously vertical Walnut whip, with an icecream that isn’t too convincing for us, while the ‘mousse’, let’s say, of the main element and its base jump at you from the plate.

Truffles follow as petit fours. Now these delivered the (PX) killer punch!

The (overstaffed) service, which struck us as slightly stiff in the beginning, is in fact composed of good chums; they just have a French style, poor guys :). All very competent, except a young and clueless waitress who, when asked about the cooking of a venison, spent about ten seconds muttering ‘the venison…the venison…let me think…’ and then struck by a sudden inspiration came out with: ‘I think it’s finished sous vide’. Now that’s an idea. She promised to ask somebody but she never did. It was clear that she didn’t give a toss about the dishes and we think that for this reason she should not be allowed to go near the customers.


Three courses are (for now) £45, with the option of a fully vegetarian one, and there are tasting menus at £55. So, price-wise, Alyn Williams is a clear winner on most competition at this (high) level.


Yet there is some skimping on some ingredient amounts, we feel, which may partially detract from the fullness of the experience, and explain our strange feelings about our lunch. We ask ourselves: did we like everything? And the answer is yes. Not one poor dish (and by poor we mean Michelin-star standard poor). Was anything banal? You’re joking. The level of technique and inventiveness here is high indeed.


And were we well-treated? Extremely.


But what was truly memorable? Honestly, only the nibbles, notably the gougeres and the petit fours, and the sweetbread. All the rest was clever, ingenious and very cleanly presented. The desserts especially, but everything really, showed exquisite technique. But for us most flavours were simply too polite. Even the temperatures were too timid. So, admirable, yes; memorable, no, at least for us and least on this occasion. Perhaps what we missed here was the directness and clarity we found for example at Petrus, a recently visited restaurant of similar class that also delivers highly accomplished cuisine. Anyway, we definitely feel we should return to try other appealing dishes by Alyn Williams (his menu is a pleasure to read), and also to get to the bottom of why such well-crafted creations failed to elicit screams of pleasure from us. Sometimes it happens that one only ‘gets’ it the second time, especially when the cooking is as subtle as this, and let’s not exclude the very real possibility that we are a bit slow of understanding.


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Luciano

The day: 4^th March 2009, Dinner.

The place: 72 St James Street, London SW1A 1PH (tel: 020 7408 1440)

The venue: Luciano

The food: Italian

The drinks: Interesting wine list, heavily Italian. Also by the glass.

 

 THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED (as this review concluded, ‘Perhaps the bar is its most useful part. It’s hard to see a bright future for the rest.’…)

Our Toptable booking calls this restaurant (unlike their business card) ‘Luciano – Marco Pierre White’, showing a burning desire to emphasise the association with the great and prematurely retired chef. It remains to be seen whether he should also be equally proud of this association…(we aren’t sure, nor sufficiently interested to find out to be frank, whether he is part patron or he just acts as a consultant).

Located in monstrously wealthy St. James, the interior is suitably chic in both large rooms, the first mainly occupied by a large bar area, and the other comprising the restaurant proper, the wall displaying many photographs of scantily dressed women, the floor made of nice wood planks. We sit at the corner end of an impressive leather upholstered bench, with soft lights and an abat-jour on the table. The tables themselves are very close to each other, but thanks to the vast space you will only be forced to breath your neighbour’s breath when the restaurant is completely full, which looks quite a feat.

The menu offers many simple Italian classics, mostly overpriced. We will be choosing from a restricted Toptable special menu which offers three courses for an enticing £21.95.

The bread arrives.

The accompanying oil is of high quality, slightly citrusy, probably Tuscan. The bread itself pleases us with some variety: ciabatta, olive bread, casareccio, rosemary, walnuts and raisins. And we cannot complain about the quality, either.

No amuse bouche, of course, and so we move straight to our first courses:

– Soup of the day

– Cold beef salad with mustard sauce

The soup of the day turns out to be a Ribollita which, for those of you who don’t know, is a traditional rustic Tuscan thick bean soup. It ought to ooze rich flavour. This one doesn’t. It is strikingly unmemorable, a typical product of soulless cooking, though not at all unpleasant, except for the slightly undercooked beans.

The beef salad is supported by the good core raw material. The unadvertised ungraceful, lame rocket mountain is redolent of 90’s memories. The parmesan is also surprisingly lame. The mustard fails to light up this dish, which is however not unpleasant thanks to the beef, and to a style that, while soulless, at least does not lack balance.

For both dishes, the portions are generous.

At this point the waiter tries to take away our unfinished bread basket. We almost faint. After making our need for bread (especially having skipped pasta) clear, the waiter will come back with a new full basket, and even with fresh olive oil. Nice touch, and even half a smile!

And here come our mains:

– Rib-eye steak.

– Chargrilled tuna with rocvket and tomato

What a good steak, the rare cooking as requested allowing the beef to express its full flavour and texture! It really is very good, and compares more than favourably, for example, with the one we had here. But the chips, oh dear, the chips, what a disaster. Typical mushy texture inside of defrosted and badly cooked stuff. Well, you too can probably tell from the picture. MPW would not like that.

Like the rib eye, the tuna, too, is good, perfectly cooked so as to be moist and succulent, and even excellently seasoned. There are no horrible chips to spoil the feast here, just once again the banal rocket salad. Were the advertised tomatoes there? We think not, and much better this way.

And finally, our desserts:

– Ice cream selection

– Torta del giorno

The ice-cream (vanilla and chocolate) is just OK, the vanilla exceedingly sweet and the chocolate lame. Uhm, to be fair we are being generous: this is just passable.

The cake of the day is a chocolate tart. The crust is good, crumbly, the chocolate is ifairly deep, though it leaves a burnt aftertaste. For the vanilla ice-cream, see above.

Overall, including a Dolcetto D’Alba Parusso 2007 at around £30 and a bottle of water, the total bill comes to £91.69 thanks to the special deal. Otherwise, you’d be looking very far North of £100.

This venue has a service problem, at least on the night we were there. The manager is utterly charmless and useless (we spare you the details), and the waiters, while professional and kind overall, look so sad that you wonder whether the manager tortures them before and after the service.

Cuisine-wise, we fail to see the point of Luciano. Nothing except for the chips was totally bad, something was good, most was deeply average. At full prices, it would not make sense to head there, we think, given the many superior Italian choices nearby. This is neither a destination venue, nor a proper neighbourhood restaurant. The very plain and unimaginative food is trattoria style, a trattoria in the middle of St. James’, at St James’ prices and, especially, without much of the flavour impact you’d find in a real trattoria (though, we repeat, we found some trattoria generosity in the portions). Marco Pierre White surely does not advice on dish presentation. We leave it to him to decide what this establishment is. Perhaps the bar is its most useful part. It’s hard to see a bright future for the rest.

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L’ Autre Pied

The day: December 12^th 2008, Lunch.
The place: 5-7 Blandford Street, Marylebone Village, London W1U 3DB.
The venue: L’ Autre Pied
The food: French
The drinks: Nice, well priced and ranged selection, also in smaller sizes (glasses, 460ml pot).

(Note: Chef Marcus Eaves has moved to Pied a Terre since this review)

Let’s check this sister operation of bi-starred Pied a Terre, with Chef Marcus Eaves in command of the kitchen, before the crazed praises of the critics, the powerful patrons and public relation machine behind it, and the inevitable Michelin star bring it into the price stratosphere.

As you can see, we come in pretty cynical and disenchanted – we have learned enough by now of how things work in the restaurant business. Will we come out equally disenchated? Let’s see.

The interior is Arbutus style, minimalistic, stark, with unclothed tables (there are however pseudomats (rubber?) encased in the tables), and floral, modernist (apparently handmade) decorations on a glass partition and on the wall adding some curvy lines to the linear interior.

The menu offers several possibilities. There’s Sunday menu affording a four course lunch at £34.50. A la carte choices for the starters are in the £9-14 range and for mains in the £16-20 range. The seven course tasting menu is at £52. But there is a temptingly well priced menu du jour (lunch) and pre-theater at £21 for three course. We take advantage of another very reasonable looking three course Sunday Lunch menu for £26.50 (it also includes a complimentary Bellini

on arrival).

When we order our courses we ask the Italian waiter to take our wine order too, and we’ll be punished by the sommelier/waiter who will just place the bottle on the table without making us try it – this is a first.

The bread arrives:

Served warm and with nice butter, but really they won’t win a star for this.

For starters we had chosen:

– Caramelised onion veloute’, cannellini beans, smoked olive oil

– Lasagna of game, chanterelle mushrooms, chestnut foam

Man takes the first sip the veloute’ and Woman the first dig into the lasagna. They look at each other, and they instantly realize, without exchanging a word but just a delighted expression, that they agree: this is not an ordinary place. This instant recognition is a rare experience (so different, for example from the highly acclaimed and already starred One Lombard Street).

The layered flavours emanating so clearly from both dishes are striking. The veloute’ has a sweet acidic background, perfect thickness, balance, charm, with the cannelloni slightly ‘al dente’ (let’s say), and the olive oil, as always, making the dish soar.

The lasagna is ever so fine, packing concentrated, moist, soft, beautiful game. The dish is nicely presented on a slate tile (quite fashionable of late, but not very comfortable, though), the various components integrating very well in terms of texture and flavour.

We are looking forward to our mains:

– Aged (how much?) sirloin of Angus beef, caramelized cauliflower puree’, shallot fondant, roasting juices (£3 supplement)

– Roasted breast of pheasant, Savoy cabbage, Puy lentils, and red wine sauce

The beef has a reasonably deep flavour and a great texture. In our book this is cooked longer, and so is drier, than the ‘rare’ we had asked for. The roasting juices are nice and sharp, and can be soaked up by an admirable, floury side puree,

but the shallot fondant… the shallot fondant is an explosion of goodness from another world (the caramelised cauliflower puree was there, fine and beautiful and surely adding moisture and richness of flavour –Eaves likes caramelized stuff, obviously- but in a dish already so rewarding it did not register a deep impression on us).

The pheasant, too, while its meat was very pleasant on the palate, could have been cooked more sympathetically – it was slightly drier than the best samples we’ve had (recently here for example), and with some bitterness on the outside. We think there’s some scope for improvement in the cooking here. The sweet wine sauce was extremely apt, and so was the Savoy cabbage, with a tangy push coming from somewhere (citrus fruit?). The lentils, the baby onion and the beetroot created a full vegetable taste spectrum which we appreciated.

We are already happy, but here are are the desserts:

– Apple and blackberry crumble, bayleaf custard, blackberry sorbet

– Warm custard of Valrhona chocolate, Passion fruit icecream

The apple crumble is superb, the volatile bayleaf delicately permeating the whole dish and our nostrils and providing an unmistakable background character, integrating absolutely smoothly with the rest, the delightful pistachios, the sorbet, the crumble in a feast of assorted zingness and sweetness.

We were initially skeptical about the chocolate and passion fruit combination, but we were completely won over by the idea and the execution. The ‘custard’ is a sort of divinely airy liquid mousse (if this renders the idea) with apple bits. The ice cream is just as creamy as we like it (you know we are fussy about icecream), perfect and tangy, enriched by a crunchy help from the hazelnuts. With such delicate yet intense flavours, this dessert was frighteningly good.

A bottle of Syrah Vin de Pays des Collines Rhodaniennes Jean Luc Jamet 2006 at £29.60, the water at £3.50 (you won’t be frowned upon if you ask tap water), the £3.00 supplement for the beef, and the usual 12.5% service charge, brought the total to £96.30, truly great value for this level of cuisine.

The service was cheerful and friendly and chatty, though not yet at a level matching the food. The waiter described the dishes wrongly, somehow defeating the purpose of this usual litany you are subjected to in ‘high-end’ restaurants while the dish cools off. The sommelier or wine waiter was forever offended and distant. It being Sunday, however, the big manager wasn’t there to keep a look on things.

We had a most impressive lunch. Marcus Eaves is clearly a young chef of superior talent who prepares interesting, expressive and controlled dishes. It’s not bistro cusine, by a long strech, but rather a form of haute cusine firmly and pleasantly anchored on the ground: no foamy bullshit here. Not that everything was perfect: the cooking precision in both our mains left something to be desired, for example (to be fair, being Sunday the kitchen boss wasn’t there either – so things may be different on weekdays). But this is definitely cuisine that comfortably passes the one star level (and one day maybe even more) . So, we came in cycnical and we came out mollified. We are glad we went in the first year of its opening, and we suggest you hurry up, too!

(Added on 18 January 2009: of course we were right: L’AP has just got its Michelin star).

 

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Life is beautiful

This

is a Zuppa di ceci con prezzemolo and riccioli di merluzzo nero (Chick pea soup with parsley and curls of black cod).

And we should add, extra-virgin olive oil from outer space… (seriously, it is in fact from our planet, more precisely from Latina). This is an off-menu item we recently enjoyed at Latium. The ensemble was just so balanced, with flavours so clear and so intense, to make you want to shout: this is great! this is the essence of Italian cuisine!

We need to remember this the next time we end up in a pretentious venue – sadly no scarcity, it will surely happen- where we look in vain for a spark on the palate beyond the technique and the smokes and mirrors: eating well is about flavour is about flavour is about flavour.

Well, since we are at it… our dinner continued with some other delights. For example this:

Maltagliati with pheasant ragout and girolles mushrooms

What makes this ragout so damn good –we just can’t get enough of its captivating sweetness- is (beside the great mushrooms) the ‘fond’ (this one of chicken), something which you won’t find in many Italian restaurants in the UK (or even in Italy, for that matter). This is technique not at the service of itself or of the show, but at the service of the dish, just of the dish.

We also had the:

Chicken tortellini in broth

The theme of this dish is delicacy: not your regular in-yer-face Bolognese tortellini, here we have something frankly more refined. But the broth carries enough personality that it alone could be a dish in itself.

And finally just look at this:

Tagliata di manzo with wild mushrooms and potato puree

And this:

Pheasant with cime di rapa (broccoli tips), cauliflower cream and roast potatoes.

You could frame these dishes and hang them on the wall, so beautiful they look. But we ate them instead. They were hearty, they were delicate, and our palates were grateful for that. Admittedly the splendid colour of the beef comes from it being cooked between raw and rare: but isn’t that the best way to taste it? Man and Woman think so.

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Semplice

The day: 2nd August 2007, Dinner.
The place: 9-10 Blenheim Street, London W1S 1LJ (020-7495 1509)
The venue: Ristorante Semplice
The food: Fine Italian Dining
The drinks: Carefully chosen list, Italian based, wide range of prices starting from the teens, also by the glass.

Ristorante Semplice opened just last March in Mayfair: Chef Marco Torri is in the kitchen, while Giovanni Baldino and his team man the front room. We had never been here before, but we knew we would feel comfortable, almost at home: manager Giovanni Baldino and his team were those who took care of us during their time at our fave Latium.

We confess that we’ve always found Baldino’s charm irresistible. But before entering the restaurant Man and Woman looked into each other’s eyes and made a solemn pact that, despite the regrettable lack of the usual anonymity, they had to be brutally honest in this review as in all others – no matter how well they would treat us, we would just relay the facts as they were, and most of all scrutinise the flavours in our dishes through a fine comb, as always.

So let’s begin…
The interior, a single room divided in two by a wood panelled wall, is an elegant affair of cream, gold and dark ebony brown. Its far from neutral tones however are sure to hurt the visual sensitivity of others. Some tables are rather close to one another, other less so. We were given the choice between a table tightly crammed in a row of other tables, and one with acres of space around, next to the central wall. Surprisingly we went for the latter (with the added bonus that, the level of noise in most UK restaurants being a problem for us, the wall provided excellent protection). Above is a view from the table.

We were welcomed by an excellent glass of Franciacorta spumante: can you believe it, an Italian restaurant that favours Italian spumante over French Champagne, how very peculiar…but apparently somebody disagrees (we prefer not to take up the xenophobic slant of your review of Semplice, as we just cannot take seriously somebody that hails Sardo as a beacon of Italian cuisine in London… ).

Tsk tsk, no bread basket: as you know, not a way to win our hearts…but assistant manager Vito Nardelli assured us we had a ‘bottomless plate’, so no need to hoard our focaccia crumbs here. The bread comes with a little plate of deeply aromatic olive oil from Campania.

The menu is reasonably long and rather enticing, with starters from the £7.50 of chickpea soup with quails and lardo di Colonnata to the £10.50 of e.g. Fassona beef carpaccio, primi in the £7.50-£9.50 range (unless you want to go for Lobster trofie, in which case you are looking at £15) and main courses in the £14.50-£19 range. Just for the fun of it, we note that the most expensive item of the menu is still well below the £28 that Theo Randall charges for his chargrilled Limousin veal chops with chantarelle mushrooms and salsa verde.

While waiting, a welcome from the kitchen: a caprese with Buffalo mozzarella:

The mozzarella was luxuriantly milky as fresh mozzarella should be, the cherry tomatoes at the same time sweet and tangy: delicious.

Next, our primi arrive:

– Buffalo ricotta ravioli with spinach and toasted hazelnuts from Piedmont (special of the day, £10.50)

– Pesto filled potato gnocchi with pine nuts and green beans (£7.50).

The ricotta ravioli: this is a very simple dish, and a bit of a provocation, in the same spirit of Theo Randall’s tomato sauce pasta. The kind of simple dish you can easily assemble at home, so here too we were curious to see how the chef would pull it off. Well, with great success: the butter sauce was light, with the toasted hazelnuts a perfect valet for her Majesty ricotta (really good), at the same time delicate and flavoursome, enriching the consistency and flavour spectrum without obtruding. We thought back of Randall’s muted performance the previous week, and the comparison was a little shameful for the celebrity…

The gnocchi: Man, of Ligurian birth, is always ready to be moved by pesto preparations (and by potato gnocchi al pesto in particular, having spent countless hours in his childhood rolling Granny’s gnocchi on a fork to give them the typical indentations); but also unremittingly severe in his judgements…Well, no indentations here, the gnocchi were giant specimens, ‘gnocconi’ more than gnocchi. Anyway they were delightful, the flavours true and clear, and the dense condiment a nice match. They were filled with an intensely perfumed pesto, and accompanied by toasted pine nuts (conferring an unusual taste variation to the pesto, as uncooked pine nuts are one of its basic ingredients) and very fine green beans, another ingredient appearing in classical ‘pasta al pesto’.

Next, the secondi. We asked for:

– Roast and pan-fried rabbit with carrots and broad beans (£17.50)

– Grilled breast of duck with aubergines, aged balsamic vinegar and soy sauce (£16).

The duck breast came colourfully presented (though the presentation can be improved), cut ‘book leaf’ style with the meat interspersed with unadvertised avocado slices, and sitting on the roasted aubergine. Mr Baldino himself poured the 25 year old balsamic vinegar on the meat at the table. We were impressed (Man particularly) by this interesting and original dish. Soy, though we personally use it extensively at home, is certainly not a common ingredient in Italian cuisine. We have also not seen avocado too often in Italian restaurants. And the combination of soy and balsamic was rather audacious – damn, at home we have used both soy and balsamic vinegar on avocado, but never together: why didn’t we ever think of it ourselves? The combination worked well, the meat was good and cooked nicely, perhaps only the aubergine seeming not to add very much to the combination.

The real show-stopper, however, was the rabbit. All of it was in the plate (well, its representative parts), including innards, elegantly presented in various preparations: the shoulder first slow-cooked separately, then wrapped in the lightest of fillo pastries; the leg breaded and pan fried together with a bit of liver; the saddle smothered in an excellent reduction, with bits of liver and of lungs. The rabbit itself was excellent, the technique behind it impeccable and the end result stirring.

If you want, you can finish your meal with an interesting selection of cheeses from Piedmont, mainly coming from small producers using ‘alpeggio’ milk (produced by animals grazing on high valleys in the Alps and of unparalleled aromatic richness – we had quite a bit of it in Trentino). It must be the most impressive in London (though the one at Quirinale was remarkable too). But we, cholesterol conscious saddos that we are, decide to pass on this treasure for this time.

A little detour arrives:

Basil sorbet: very refreshing, very aromatic.
Finally, our ‘real’ dessert: apple fritters with cinnamon custard (in the cup) and apple jelly (£6.50 – desserts go from £6 to £8)

The Custard was extremely airy, contrasting the much more ‘bodily’ apple fritters, all underlined by the apple jelly: a superb and cutely presented little dish. And as if this was not enough, petit four: ‘baci di dama’ and intriguing chocolate.

We had let the team do the wines, by the glass (a Vermentino, a Chardonnay and the only one we remember properly…two glasses of 2004 red Maclan from Veneto – Cabernet and Merlot), and we also had two glasses of excellent Passito di Pantelleria (£8 on the list). The rather rare 1 litre bottle of water goes for £3.50. Even without the ‘caress’ (Italian expression) which shaved our bill considerably, our three course meal bill still would have just met the £100 rule mark including (12.5%) service and wine.

The service bears all the hallmarks of Giovanni Baldino’s style: impeccable, friendly, supple and attentive without being intrusive. Sure, that night we were spoiled rotten: but even without such treatment this is the type of establishment that makes anybody want to come back. A strong emphasis is put on the sourcing of ingredients, all of superb quality. Chef Torri’s style, with his clean execution, relatively straightforward and restrained but peppered up by the occasional bold move, is a very good support for raw material that also wants speak for itself. Of course, sitting just off New Bond street, in this part of the world you would think it must be more expensive than establishments of comparable quality (at least in THEOry): but compare and contrast with e.g. Arbutus and Theo Randall: there we had to take at least a mixture of lunchtime specials to meet our £100 rule, here you can do so by going a la carte (and the lunch menu here is £15 for two course and £18 for three). Overall, this is one the very best and authentic expressions of Italian cuisine in London, where real passion for the food conjures up a true dining experience for the gourmet. Well done, Semplice.

(Added on 18 January 2009: Michelin agreed with us – Semplice have just been awarded their star).

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