Tozi - promising and classy Victoria Italian - Sept 2013

The Edinburgh Festival is getting bigger every year. This year, as in many recent years, it manages to spread down to London to keep the party going well into September. Thankfully, though the 5am finishes stay up in Auld Reekie, in the weeks after the Festival there are almost enough shows booked in for post Festival London residencies for the discerning theatregoer to skip the trip North entirely.

If you're reading this in time, do go and see The Events at the Young Vic. It's on over October and was one of my Festival picks. There's normally a few at the Soho worth seeing (including Fleabag and There Has Possibly Been An Incident) and the scarily talented Lucy Ellinson was bringing Grounded to The Gate way before she'd won the plaudits of every man and their dog in Edinburgh. The cynical among you might wonder what these shows, hits every one of them, were doing slumming it in Edinburgh when a money making London run obviously awaited. But it's not a sure thing, this business of pre-programming critical hits, as you'll know if you'd had to sit through I'm With The Band.

Mercifully short, we were out of there by just after 9 and contemplating a schlepp into town or an early night when I remembered Tozi, a sexy sounding new Italian cichetteria unglamorously wedged under the lumpen Park Plaza Hotel like a pair of risqué kitten heels on a rugby prop forward. We weren't looking for a blow out, more a couple of glasses of fizzy and a couple of plates to take the taste of mediocre theatre away.

A couple of large, over Peroni'ed, verging on loutish tables of office boys deadened the bar slightly, but pushing past them opened up a large dark space, loudly packed with the young, the amiable and the well dressed. It's obviously an easy option for the hotel guests of the unlovely place above, but there seemed to be enough people there to suggest that Tozi might be a rare oasis in the Victoria culinary desert, capable of bringing people to it, rather than only those forced to work in it.

An uncomfortably Lilliputian table wedged us too close to our TOWIE neighbours, but at least was opposite the main pass giving a great view into the cavernous kitchen and ample opportunity to overhear and people watch. Assuming the rugger buggers aren't colonising it every night, the lighter, padded bar area seemed a better, more comfortable option.
  

Small plates arrived quickly and in no particular order, not specifically for sharing (I've never understood why the two things go together - smaller portions make me much less inclined to share) we did, going for 5 of them to share, less than the 7 recommended for two diners, but plenty for a post theatre snack. Soft shelled crab was hot, fresh and thankfully greasefree. It's one of those dishes that really reminds you you're eating a dead creature, crunching through yielding shell like a bit part character in an Indiana Jones movie. If you can cope with the vicera, there are few dishes more rewarding. Deep flavoured flesh ensconced in a tight, light batter - dreamily divine, brought higher with a sprinkle of chilli and a sharp basil oil.

Juicy baby chicken arrived on a wooden paddle, a slightly tongue in cheek mini roast, complete with copper gravy pot of deepest silky umami. This was a lovely and accomplished little plate. With a crunchy, clean side of some sort, I'd quite happily take this as a regular lunch option.

Aubergine parmigiana was sleekly and lusciously creamy, like a dowager countess in full length mink. Slow braised aubergine, cut with tomato and a hefty jolt of cheese. Definitely not the clean and healthy side to pair with the chicken. Decanting it into a lukewarm Staubb didn't do much for it, but the fundamentals of the dish were good enough to make me scrape the plate clean.

The jolly, and not so jolly, staff were certainly authentico, if a little unfocussed at times. And when your restaurant is this full at 9.30 on a wet Wednesday in Victoria, you need to be better, or at least slicker. That being said, it certainly wasn't a terminal performance front of house and, given that it's one of a (very) few decent options in Victoria, is certainly something to gloss over.
  

 
 

Lardo and Unpackaged - High end Hackney - June 2103

 It's the squatters, street artists and DJs of Hackney who made Hackney the hotbed of creative cool it is today. Unfortunately where they led followed the city trendies, design agency wonks and sub Nathan Barley meeja types all clamouring to claim that they've been here since, you know, since it was anything cool and now pack the restaurants and pubs (if not the bars and factory parties) for their fix of foods grown in locavore's allotments and on the factory rooftops of experimental urban gardeners.

It's more likely the latter camp and the Bugaboo bound broods of the latter camp, who pack the reclaimed wood tables of Mare Street eatery Lardo and next door cafe Unpackaged. The crowd is crowded with middle-aged men in clean designer trainers and trendy Kate Moss style mums who lunch. There's nothing wrong with that per se, especially if they're encouraging eateries like this to spring up.

Exposed brick (yawn) and upcycled furnishings might be last years trope, but it 's hardly out of place in this old factory and arts complex with its beautifully restored Crittal windows, daily menus on a clipboard (of course) and humming central bar and kitchen. Delightfully arch staff flex their tattoos as they twist through the tables straight out of hipster central casting.
 

There's gold on them there menus though. As you'd expect given the name, they go a bundle on meats here and digging on swine is what we came to do. It's a short but pleasing selection of sharing plates (yep, them too) of meats and veggies, small salads, pastas and pizzas from the wood fired oven in the centre of the kitchen.

'Lardy loin' came, as hoped, as the melt in your mouth thin strips of nutty fat that can only come from a happy pig. Impossible to stop eating. Arancini weren't large but were delightful, packed with morcilla and oozingly appropriate Italian cheeses like an advert for lactose and a ravishingly beautiful Pecorino, broad bean and mint salad was truly greater than the sum of its parts, if not quite enough to cope with the local yoot questioning its credentials.

We followed that with a shared salamini pizza. Fudgey soft button sized discs of picante salami pressed into a fresh sourdough base and covered with lashings of chilli oil. Mighty fine. There was nothing special about the tiramisu that finished the meal, but I suppose you can't have everything…

Next door is the slightly less easy to pin down Unpackaged. The hipster equivalent of those fresh goods stores that your Nan used to take you to. One half of the room is given over to an enormous and oh so eco selection of dried food bins. There's no way you could run out of spelt pasta or steel milled muesli round here, thankfully, there's no way you could run out of gorgeous looking breads and pastries either.
 

Only there for a quick breakfast, it was enough to make me brave the granola. Squidgy black beans came with dollop of sour cream, avocado and the welcome spike of raw chilli. Generously and pleasantly spiced and served with some of that sourdough bread, it kept me going till the evening. Who says vegetarians have no fun? 

Guiseppes - the Italian of your parent's first date - July 2012

No Shard watcher am I. Resolutely unimpressed by the see through penis substitute despite the raving of friends. I am also unhappy watching the area change beyond recognition as the monied classes roll in. Don't get me wrong, the sympathetic gentrification of Bermondsey Street, led by local businesses such as Wolff & Tay, Pizarro and the Garrison is a 'good thing', but the tourist focussed homogenisation of places like Borough Market drives me mad.

Guiseppes, hidden away in a basement and accessed through a doorway in an alley under the shadow of the monolith (though that covers a pretty broad area to be fair), is resolutely old school. Guttering candles, faded Italian travel prints, roses on dark wobbling wood tables and an Italian troubadour most nights. This is the local Italian your parents remember.

Other than a glass of Montepulciano you could strip limescale with and some thankfully unproffered neon limoncello, it seems unadventurous but pretty decent. At less than a tenner for most mains it's reasonably priced too.

We scarfed bruschetta with zingy flavoursome tomatoes and a bundle of supermarket bagged salad followed swiftly by two big plates of passable pasta and sauce. There's nothing exceptional on the menu and barring a few specials on a chalkboard, no seasonal changes to a parade of old favourites. You won't find any of the art and guile of Zucca, Tinello, L'Anima or any of the modern Italians but given the £20 a head (inc drinks and service) price tag, we weren't too bothered. It's not that kind of place.

So Guiseppes. It's where you'd eat if your quick pint at the George spans into 2 or 3, you can't get a table at Brindisa but don't fancy wandering to Bermondsey Street.

And it's in a basement. Gentrify that. I dare you...

Carluccios - an overpriced, soulless moneymaker - Mar 2012

Snob that I am, I've been guilty in the past of dismissing the Carluccios chain restaurants as overpriced delis with cafe tables. The one in Oxford Circus used to be a default working overflow when we ran out of meeting rooms and we'd occasionally pick up croissants and expensive but good coffees as a treat on a dull or hungover morning.. Spending Friday night in one has never been something I'd think of, much less look forward to.

Wandering into the Richmond branch at the end of a busy week to meet up with friends didn't tick many boxes. I'd have been happier with a curry at home, a little bistro or, frankly anything else than a bowl of overpriced, mass produced pasta among the young daters an the elderly middleclass they would inevitably morph into. As I say, I'm a snob.

Closer consideration of the menu gave me some hope. There are a range of pastas to follow a good choice of starters taken from around Italy and a relatively uncomplicated fish and grill section if you're trying to avoid carbs. No pizzas feature.

The ingredients were reasonable, the pasta and gnocci fresh and perfectly cooked. My sauce, a venison ragu, was a meagre portion slopped on and rolled in the pan to give some    coverage, the bulk of the slightly dry meat managed to cling together, fearful of separation. Shared starters were assembled from good ingredients, all available to buy from the deli counter alongside and not really worth much more discussion. 

The service was abrupt and desultory in places, amateurish but friendly in others, the furniture 'wipe while you're sitting' cafe style. While I couldn't say anything actively bad about it, I couldn't say anything particularly good either and with prices equivalent to some of the better mid range Italians in town (certainly comparable to Zucca, Trullo and Mele e Pele) it just doesn't stack up for me. Somewhere to go when you run out of meeting room space, or a fallback mid session, but definitely not somewhere I'd plan to go again.

                                     

Mele e Pere - A quietly confident new Soho Italian - Feb 2012

Please go to Mele e Pere. Seriously. Somebody really needs to.
Over dinner, I was listening to tales from Dr Vole who had spent the day shuttling a visitor from the Greater United States of America round the conference venues of Greater London. Already less than impressed by the state of our fair city, he at least had managed to avoid the centre of it. On encountering that perfect shitstorm of British planning mediocrity, Leicester Square, wouldn't it have been fantastic to tell him the tale of how the entire sorry quadrangle was airlifted to create a town in the Midlands before the Blitz, saving one depressing concrete lump for future unfortunate generations, while creating a permanent building site in the heart of the capital, an enduring monument to the continual change and development that goes on in our lovely city. I had cause to be grateful to our transatlantic kin tonight though. Without a table of whooping', hollerin' good ol' boys from the US of A, we'd have been virtually alone in Soho's newest gastronomic development, casual Italian basement diner Mele e Pere. 

We were guided in by a gaudy wall of glass baubles, a pretty addition to an unlovely street but sadly for them not a clear enough indication of what lies within. Tripping down the steps brought us to a large subterranean cavern, whitewashed and well spaced with a lost and found furniture aesthetic created from a Habitat filled junk store.

Starters come from a short rustic selection, expertly matched by the Italian focused wine list. An explosively fruity half bottle of Puglian Primativo worked well as a bridge between the two courses. The well described and accessible list gives a little more info than what is at times a blunt and monosyllabic menu. Spoilt by Polpo and Bocca Di Lupo I found the lamb and mint polpettes as solid and bland as a chubby public school boy and soft tasty rose veal spoilt by pointlessly raw artichoke.

Thankfully things looked up, and rapidly, with the pasta course. There are no half portions here as you'd find in Zucca so it's an either / or between pasta and mains. Tagliatelle with ox cheek ragu was silky, sensual and substantial, if a little salty. Tiny cheek chunks and fragrant tomatoes came sparingly curled round yolky firm carbohydrate curls. The spring vegetable ravioli were also exceptionally well made parcels, albeit with more ricotta than anything else inside.

Tiramisu arrived like an over-exuberant busty hug from Nigella Lawson. Creamy, boozy and oh so slightly wrong. After a heavy hunk of pasta it's almost a step too far. Enough, almost too much, to share.

By the time we left, just after 9pm, a restaurant that deserved to be much busier was almost entirely empty. We walked out into Soho feeling it should be past our bedtime, like seeing a film during the day. It's a shame and I genuinely hope it improves. It wasn't perfect, but at £30 a head for two courses and wine I felt we'd eaten well. An uncomplicated, inexpensive Italian in tourist ground zero deserves a wider audience.

Villagio in Hammersmith - Feb 2012

I'm not going to dwell here too long...

Italian restaurants in hotels are a bean counter's no brainer. That's why so many hotels around the world have them. The cuisine is widespread, recognised and inoffensive to everyone, easy to prepare and (if you scrimp on the ingredients and the time) easy to come out at a low bottom line cost. Unfortunately the difference between a good one and a poor one is all too evident, but not until the food lands in front of you.

Villagio, unfortunately positioned on the Hammersmith roundabout opposite the bus station has that suicidal Hilton airport hotel vibe down to a tee. We went with guests, travellers thankfully too jetlagged to notice what the hell they were eating.

The room has that large, cold, boomingly beige, parquet wood vibe known the world over to those who need to turn tables between breakfast, lunch and dinner with a minimum of fuss. From the glossy corporate menu to the service there's no love here.

The food isn't even Hilton. It's Holiday Inn at best. My guests 'Italian' burger was a room service disaster. A lukewarm granite puck slapped between anaemic re-baked on the premises focaccia. The fries were alright, like underseasoned refugees from the nearby bus station MacDonalds. Chicken al Fungi was little more than underheated and cheap ricotta studded with gray lumps of protein masquerading as mushroom. No doubt someone counted the lumps to make sure I didn't get more than my allotted share. I was glad, I couldn't cope with any more than my allotted share.

As well as Hammersmith, they also have branches Berkhamsted, Andover and Barnet... I may pass.

Locanda Locatelli - rustic Italian, Mayfair prices - Oct 2011

Where: Locanda Locatelli, Marble Arch
With who: The International Man of Mystery
How much: £135 for 2 courses, wine and coffee
Come here if: you need to entertain a super spy or impress a client


As the result of a work auction of promises, I needed to take James Bond to dinner. Of course I wasn't dining with Craig, or even Brosnan, but our own real-life International Man of Mystery, an well bred, well educated type - at home in any situation -who travels the world for mysterious business reasons. Due to the similarities, I'd assumed that what was good for 007, would have worked for him. Unfortunately for both of us, and despite the original being quite the foodie, very few actual places were namechecked in the novels. I rejected Scotts (other than his fictional club the only London restaurant mentioned) and instead agreed on somewhere similarly classic, chic and understated - Evergreen North Italian Locanda Locatelli.

Locanda Locatelli oozes money. The staff, the decor and the clientele. They all scream, in a modest understated way, that if you have to ask the price of anything, you shouldn't be here. Now beating up a restaurant on Portland Square, next to Little Arabia and just up from hedgefund-land, for its pricing might feel a tad unnecessary. It's like attacking the child infused atmosphere of a Harvester during the middle of the summer holidays or as someone less verbose than I would put it, like shooting fish in a barrel. That being said, I feel it's important to make the point, as unless price is entirely and utterly irrelevant to you, pricing this steep can easily get in the way of even a very good meal.

Baccala’ Mantecato, that Venetian treat of salt cod blended with olive oil to a smooth paste with the lightest hint of the sea came with aromatic pomodoro tomatoes, watercress and a crumble of tasty polenta crisp. A rustic winter classic, scoffed by the ton as a way of getting the most out of the preserved fish in leaner months. A beautiful and expansive starter with tons of contrasting flavour, followed a vast and interesting breadbasket, opening well, but at £14.50 a plate, enough to give all but the most homesick of Venetians a moment's pause.

We both went for a pasta course as our main, the International Man of Mystery sampling the Strozzapreti pasta, a rougly rolled penne style ideal for holding a thicker tomato sauce full of olive and spicy soft n'duja salami. I went for perfectly cooked risotto over, slightly salty, duck ragu, served with a handful of girolles. It was good ribsticking fare, the kind that you'd expect at any trattoria across the Italian countryside, but with both at over £20 a plate when you pay the main course 'supplement', a little (or a lotto) on the steep side. The carne and pesci selections are also often recommended by regulars, small selections of pan fried or char grilled fresh fish and meats with simple accompaniments.   

As you'd expect, the wine list is aimed at the high end, but there are a number of reasonable surprises and it's telling that they've won a number of awards for the long, well thought out (predominently Italian) list. It's not just the obvious regions they cover, we went for a Nero Di Troia from unfashionable Puglia in the South, it's bright blackberry and prune notes with only a hint of tannin balancing perfectly against the rustic tomato and meat sauces. You'll find a few below fifty a bottle, but you have to look hard.   

Despite the vast number of night clad servers, roaming and floating between the soft white clad tables and gold banquettes like exclusive, sleek and designed water taxis through the Venetian canals, the attention to detail was mixed at best. The water server seemingly over-compensated, leaning across us to refill after every gulp of (not offered until asked for) tap, for the stingy smear of Sicilian extra virgin, poured, providenced but never topped up and the long, long wait to get the bill. Minor quibbles sure, but, as with the food itself, the caveat has to be that you expect better for the price.

Overall, it was a cracking evening, as much for the conversation and the company than the food, good as it was. Long overdue thanks to the International Man of Mystery's commitments to fighting international terror, we've agreed to go to Zucca the next time he returns from action, food fit for a double 0 agent, at prices designed for a bobby on the beat.

Da Polpo - when you realise how old you've become - Oct 2011

Where: Da Polpo, Covent Garden
With who: The Ginger Prince 
How much: a parade of small plates between a fiver and £8 each. You can eat well for £15 a head and like a king for £25...
Come here if: you keep failing to get a table at one of the others

Da Polpo is the fourth outpost from restaurateur Russell Norman and closer to the Beak Street original in size and atmosphere than the middle, smaller two. The bare walls, industrially salvaged furniture and fittings and dim lighting remain a common theme. I'm beginnning to think that Norman has shares in one of the reclaimation companies, or alternatively is manufacturing former industrial shabby chic from scratch, extruding it out by the roomful in a dark pit of indentured workers somewhere in a former Soviet state.

The service is bright, funky and considerably more tattooed than yours truly, the sparse and snacky drinks and food menus appears on clipboards and as artfully recycled placemats and even at 9:30 on a wet and windy Wednesday they still having trouble seating you. So far, so fair for another Norman conquest.

We arrived and grabbed a seat at the downstairs bar which meant we got to eat sooner, though did leave us feeling like we were in an East German factory canteen. The lighting is low, the murmur was loud but the smell from the kitchen was divine... Perched at the battered zinc bar (another division in the owner's manufacturing empire no doubt) we kicked back with an Aperol spritz and perused the familiar menu.

We went on recommendation in the end, a selection from the different sharing plates littering the list, happy enough to chat and take the suggestions of the cool but knowledgable staff. Starting and finishing with rounds of arrancia, little hot shotputts of risotto rice round a molten mozzarella core, fried with a crisp toothsome breadcrumb crust. Textbook examples of a relatively simple bar snack, you'd be slightly pissed if you queued an hour for one, but better than a rather plain chicken liver crostini, too much pate with that drying sensation of the meat left it a little cloying in the mouth, less would have been more here.

The nearest to a main in size was a shared plate of Frito Misto, seafood selection (in reality 95% of it was prawns, calamari and whitebait) competently deep fried, maintaining the integrity of the fish without being doused in oil, though oddly served without an aoili to cut through the crumb. It may be authentic, but the lemon wedge didn't do enough to lift it from dryness. Better still was the pork shoulder pizzette, one of 6 or 7 baby pizzas, a smear of rich pasata covering the small, crisp base with thin slices of smoky marbled shoulder, all cut through with piquant peppers. Having eaten similar recently, cooked by a local Italian mama from a pizza oven facing the open air, I can attest to the authenticity of these little plate shaped platters of goodness.

Like the other branches, the meatballs are excellent. Not afraid to bring up the accompanying herbs, fennel in the case of the ones we went for, they're punchy cannonballs of well seasoned meat. the seasoned tomato sauce a great accompaniment and, after another round of those arrancia (OK, maybe they are worth waiting for when served hot and fresh, dripping with mozz) we stumbled off into the night.

So is anything really different to the other branches of the 'chain'? And does it matter when the quality is high enough? While there's an element of Norman by Numbers about Da Polpo, for the neighbourhood (deepest, darkest touristic Covent Garden) it's nice to have another option in the area, though by the time you've waited for a table, there'll be another one along to take the crowd.

Bocca Di Lupo - July 2011

Where: Bocca Di Lupo, Soho

How much: £35 a head including a carafe of house Merlot

Now I have history with fried. Show me a tapas bar, a fine dining restaurant or a street-side snack joint and I'll gravitate toward the section in batter.

BDL is a perfect case in point. A menu spanning the best parts of Italy available on a small plate. It could very well be the older, grown up brother that Polpo doesn't have or a distant cousin for similarly light and upmarket Barrafina.

Admittedly it's got a 'build your own' Frito Misto section and an obsession with the (literally) gutsier end of the pig, but in the main it's a well brought up, properly behaved small plate Italian. Friendly staff in black buzz along the thick, light marble bar into the serious restaurant at the rear. If you're only a two (or a very close three) then snare seats at the wide bar if you can. It's well designed for flowing access behind you and relatively calm, even opposite the frantic kitchen, and doesn't thankfully feel like either an afterthought or a corridor.

There's plenty on the keenly priced sharing menu to tempt the non meaty. I could happily graze from their side dishes, and a small plate of plump, fresh broad bean tortellini was well executed and possibly life extending if not eye opening. But in all honesty, if you're at BDL for a bite, chances are it's going to be porky.

Most of the dishes come with two sizes, and even the small plates are reasonably proportioned. We started with plump olives, as green as snooker baize and a brace of sourdough bruchetta, layered with some of the sweet and seasonal broad beans scattered across several other dishes on the menu, here combined with salty thin shards of pig's cheek and a deep umami laden jus. They paired perfectly with similarly seasonally apt courgette flowers, stuffed with mozzarella and lifted out of their slightly oily batter with the soft bite of anchovy. 

If I were to throw a criticism, it'd be that oil. It slightly marred the courgette flowers and soaked deeply into the sheet holding the so-so Frito Misto too. Not a deal-breaker, but enough to make you regret another order of fried. You build your own frito from a small menu, baccalau was unctuous flaky battered pollack, whole squid gave great texture in the tentacles but over floured rings and bland aubergine, little more than an oil trap, let down the final dish.

Thankfully, and expectedly for a restaurant with its own ice-cream parlor over the road, they made up with the desserts. My guest took a trio of the homemade, fruit stuffed ice creams, here nestling in a toasted brioche roll, I went for Sanguinaccio, the devil's own nutella, a thick chocolate paste with pine nut and pig's blood from Abruzzo, the blood adding a dark note of sweet iron, lifting the dark cocoa to the heavens. I licked the bowl clean. I'm not a proud man...

  

Jose and Zucca on Bermondsey Street - June 2011

Where: Jose and Zucca, Bermondsey Street

With who: J School and Dr Vole

How much: just over £40 a head for the entire evening. Sherries and starters in Jose are between £3 and £6 and you'll struggle to spend over £18 for 2 courses at Zucca.

Come here if: you want to try a range of great restaurants in a relatively small space

We'd finally hit summer. Friday night spent lolling outside the pub and a perky Saturday of sun and fun with walks wearing shirt and no jumper. A continental day ended appropriately with a hoped for but unscheduled aperitif stop in Bermondsey tapas joint du jour Jose. Owned eponymously by Jose 'Brindisa' Pizarro and garrulous business partner front of house expert Herve, it's finishing the job that neighbour (and final dinner destination) Zucca kick started and making Bermondsey, Street at least, a real foodie destination.

I have a slight problem with tapas restaurants out of their native environments, and it's that you can't crawl. The joy of tapas for me comes with a gleeful bowl around the neighbourhood and a bite and a glass in each joint. Moderation, exercise and a pub crawl in one. With a little help from Herve, we may have cracked it.

Prior to dinner and after a long warm walk, I was ready for a glass of something dry and crisp and cold. I steered us into Jose, keen to have a gander. The white tiled space focussed around the marble slab bar feels uncharacteristically out of place in South London, the heat emanating from it even more so. A combination of the small room, a large stove surrounded by Jose and his brigade, no air con and a sunny day meant I nearly lost the others at the first hurdle. The place was packed, no more than 25 in there, but it's enough not to want to be there when it's busier. No reservations means that like Spuntino you're going to have to come early, or be prepared to wait. As Herve explained, they're not aiming for the (London) bridge and tunnel crowd but hoping to add something to a great little local scene prior to opening larger restaurant Pizarro later in the year.

I sucked down deliciously dry sherry while we gorged, an early doors licensing quirk meant no booze without food, on a couple of the delicious tapa from behind the counter. We grabbed a couple of plates judging they would suffice as starters. Sea fresh boquerones, juicy white anchovies, came in a light and sweet seasoned cava vinegar, Murcian speciality pisto, a simple full flavoured Spanish version of ratatouille, came with a perfectly fried duck's egg. Giant yolk flecked with salt looming over the the plate reminding us of the late spring sun. Despite the specials board (cruelly featuring crab and basil croquettes the next day) you'd struggle to make a full meal out of the place, but that's partly the point. Grab a couple of plates, and move on. We admitted to Herve that we were going on to Zucca for our mains; "there you go then! There's your tapas crawl.. start here, mains at Zucca and then on to Village East for a cocktail or dessert." Tapas crawl, Bermondsey style.

Dinner at Zucca is always a treat. It's always worth a try on the day, you might be lucky, but generally it needs booking. If you want the perfect example of a local restaurant, it's right here. Seasonal fresh and good ingredients, reasonable prices and friendly knowledgable staff. It's not a difficult combination, but it's surprisingly hard to find. The buzz in the bright, light room is palpable. Intending on only a main, we were upsold to a shared Zucca Fritti, their house special - lightly deep fried sticks of pumpkin and squash, breads and then given a complimentary plate of spinach frittata. No complaints from this one, though my stomach did let out a moan on seeing the size of the veal chop that followed. Having written about Zucca a couple of times before, I'll happily attest to the meal being up to its usual standards and urge you again to go if you haven't.

And the dessert? Not a chance. Though by the time we dragged our distended bellies out of the door, Village East was just starting to get going. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday night...

Venice - a (mainly foodie) round-up - May 2011

Overview

Don't come to Venice for the food alone: you'll be sorely disappointed. Come for the serried ranks of Murano glass tat, pushy gondoliers, the ever-present carnival masks and the tourist hordes instead - at least, that's what you're going to get. Most people are here for the canals and the romance, and the odd little alleys and sun dusty squares where it's just you and your lover. When she's pretty, she's really pretty, the effect too often reduced by the aforementioned tourist hordes.

Snaketails of umbrella-led tour parties predominate. While luckily less so in the spring, the cruise ships and coaches still regurgitate vast lumps of the very old and very young, united in their ability to irritate as they wind down the narrowest of streets.

Venice is viewed from above like a leaping fish; avoid the tourist packed San Marco at the rump like the plague. Aim instead for cheap and studenty Dorsoduro occupying the belly, quieter Canareggio at the head and dorsal and San Polo and the Rialto in the centre. The last of these, the food market at the heart of the city both literally and metaphorically, is worth an early morning trip for the still-quivering crustacea and iced piles of lagoon-caught fish, fresh veg too and all gone by 11. If you must go to St Mark's Square, go early and escape to the Rialto afterwards. We hit the misdescribed 'must see' square at 8.30 and were heading away from the cobbled tourist trap towards the Rialto Market before the menu touristicos were fully unfurled.

The local food scene
The name of the game in Venice is chichetti or polpette. Tiny bites on tiny slices of bread or small breadcrumbed balls of ground meat and fish. There's local pasta, the best utilising the excellent seafood bought from the market. There's pizza too, piles of it, the Japanese Knotweed of Italian food. Not specifically native to the region, but ubiquitous.

Both bacari and osterias serve surprisingly cheap local wine, prosecco and snacks. Bacari are often tiny hole in the wall joints where locals will grab tiny glasses or ombré of wine and a chichetti from the bar counter for a couple of euros before moving on to the next. The one nearest our hotel for example pumped out stunningly flavoured pork sandwiches and 1Eu glasses of prosecco from its postage stamp sized serving hatch. Osterias tend to be larger, still with a standing bar, but often with table service too. Don't bother trying to find a certain place, much less at a certain time, it's almost impossible on the winding streets and much like obsessing about seeing that specific band at Glastonbury. The fun is in the giro d'ombre, the Spanish-style wine bar crawl.

Some advice on standing at the bar. Do it and you'll feel smug and local (and pay less than a euro for a cafe or an ombra of wine) but play by their rules. Don't take up too much space or time and make sure you order quickly and efficiently when you catch an eye. Don't expect obsequious service or a menu, that comes at the pricier tables at the front.

I also became slightly addicted to local cocktail the spritz. Prosecco mixed with sweeter Aperol or Campari, dryly bitter either way, like an orange-scented Jack Dee. It looks wrong, and is so right. The perfect early evening pick-me-up served and stirred with a fat local olive.

We were only there for a couple of days, enough to find a few places to recommend but certainly not enough to claim any level of authority. If you go, and you should sample it at least once, then the best advice I can give is to get off the beaten track, avoid the tourists as much as you can and get involved in the local scene. 

A couple of recommendations for dinner
Al Zucca had a broad vegetarian slant, essential for Dr Vole, not the meatiest of eaters and at the wrong end of a pork odyssey. It's obviously in a guide or two as many of the customers seemed American or British (much like the rest of town, it's hard to feel like a cosmopolitan world traveller when every table around you is full of mothers with broad Lancashire accents). While the cries of 'vegetarian restaurant' were as obviously fake as they would be in many other parts of Southern Europe, there were enough vegetarian options to make you feel like they were making an effort. A few weeks later and I can't recall specific dishes, but I don't have a great memory for side dishes..
La Cantina was a real treat. Exceptional. No menu (repeatedly asking for one got two obnoxious Americans ejected) merely a selection of the best the market could offer from a grumpy bald genius hidden away behind a meat slicer. We shared a plate of fish, at €25 per person not cheap, but astoundingly good value for the amount and quality received. Fresh raw prawns and plump langoustines were sweet, creamy and served semi nude to be sucked greedily out of their shells, perfectly cooked fillets of meaty turbot, dorade and mackerel were lightly seasoned and oiled just enough to let the flavour through, it was simple but heavenly.

   A few highlights from a Canareggio 'giro d'ombre'
Around the top of the island between the Jewish Ghetto and the Rialto bridge sits Canareggio. Strada Nova runs through parallel to the Grand Canal, Murano-selling and mask-spattered by the train station, more lovely as you go round and home to a good selection of osteria and wine stores. It was recommended by several sources as the best place for an evening tapas and wine crawl and certainly didn't let us down.

Osteria Ai Osti - just off the main street in a little square widens out inside and sells battered crab and fish fritto (deep fried, lightly battered mixed fish) of a lunchtime and early evening. Start there if you can, the battered softshell crab was stunning.

Chichettaria Venexiana has shades of the tourist outside, but we ventured inside to the cool wood panelled interior for excellent tuna and mozzarella polpetti. The urge to explore deprived us of their house specialities, sandwiches of ham and cheese surrounded by battered aubergine 'bread'. Other places nearby were so-so, but as nothing is over a couple of Euros you begrudge it less, fire down your ombra and stroll on.
Alla Verdova is, we belatedly realised, something of an institution. It's as old as the hills and has been successfully balancing the local / tourist apartheit system for many years. We stayed at the bar for wonderful polpette, snapped up by the waiting crowds as soon as they hit. There was a larger selection here too, but I did wake up the next morning fantasising about those meatballs.

We also spent some amount of time in a tiny unnamed wine store, signed only by a barrel outside. Ranks of chichetti and some very accomplished pork sandwiches. The vino came from enormous bottles of house, and by that point, giggly drunk, I can confirm that it tasted of 'wine'. There were a number of others, some with salty clouds of creamy baccala served on chichetti, others for (foolishly) a solo ombra and one with a soggy mussel 'sandwich' that tipped Dr Vole over the edge. The same rule of thumb applies here as anywhere else. If you're the only people in there, you haven't found a hidden gem, just botulism...

The Rialto Market
For centuries the centre of Venetian life and still critically important. It's open early, with the stalls along the narrow streets and courtyards operating till lunchtime. Go as early as you can and take a look at the vast piles of fresh, pulsing seafood that make up the daily diet for many Venetians. As you'd expect, there are a number of places serving it for you then and there.

Tiny osteria All'arco gave me possibly my favourite experience of the trip. Standing at the bar, jostled by the workers finishing their shift, drinking wine at 10.30 in the morning (well, they have just finished work, and I am a lush, and a holidaying one) I turned to Marco the barman. We bounced different words and translations off each other to get a rough approximation of the plates of chichetti he and his father prepared daily from the best ingredients of the market. Packed into a corner, listening to the salty Italian chat of the stallholders I tucked into no less than three variants of salt cod, all prepared from the same base. Baccala Vicentzia came first. Hot, with capers and loosely flaked, it was neither salty or overly fishy but robustly held up the other flavours. It then came flaked with garlic, mayonnaise and chive and finally as local favourite Baccala Mantecato, deeply creamed with decent olive oil, it's breathtaking, simple and hideously moreish.

I'd also recommend Al Merca, another of the typical hole in the wall style baccari selling wines, a good selection of panini piccolo and the ubiquitous polpette, Bancogiro and Naranzaria. Anywhere this close to a tourist site of the magnitude of the Rialto Bridge needs to really go some to be a viable option and thankfully the last two are part of a row of decent options that share a perfect little terrace overlooking the Grand Canal. They weren't the cheapest of the places listed, but were both several leagues less than the over-priced pizza joints in San Marco and well worth it for lunch or an early evening spritz and a few snacks. Bancogiro has a Japanese Italian chef so expect ludicrously fresh sushi and the occasional Oriental twist.

View Some Venetian highlights in a larger map

Thanks as always to Dr Vole for putting up with me turning holidays into food focussed flights of fantasy and to London restaurateur and Venetian food expert Russell Norman whose boundless enthusiasm and opinions on the food of the region were supremely useful. He's the owner of some excellent restaurants: Polpo, Da Polpo and Polpetto all have strong Venetian influences if you've been inspired, Spuntino to a lesser extent, and all are well worth a visit..

Whitechapel Gallery Dining Room - Feb 2011

Where: The Whitechapel Gallery Dining Room, Whitechapel High Street
How much: £35 a head for 3 courses and a rather nice bottle of Montepulciano
With who: Dr Vole
Come here if: you want dinner with a cultural twist

As a concept, museum or gallery cafes are often better than they are in actuality. For every South London Gallery Cafe, serving reasonably priced and freshly prepared quality options, there's two or three like the National Gallery Cafe or the British Museum Court Restaurant; overpriced, predatory canteens sucking desperate funds from their patrons, the visual arts version of the over priced popcorn you get at the cinema. 


Ramsay protege Angela Hartnett has thrown her hat into the ring with this newly renovated matchbox sized dining room at hip East End Whitechapel Gallery. It's under her 'consultation' along with a company called Smart Hospitality. It smacks slightly of a branding exercise, but the promise of Hartnett's gutsy, honest and simple Italian cooking (along with a fascinating exhibition by collage maker John Stezaker) made us take the trek out east on a frosty February night. 

The menu is short, seasonal and flies all over the place. It's more Italian than anything, but only just... Nibbles include a gorgeously grassy olive oil, emerald green and good enough to drink straight - served with slices of sourdough. The list then divides into small and large plates, interchangeable easily, but starter and main for most people's needs. We go for a full-flavoured and rich cauliflower soup, essentially hot cauliflower flavoured cream, tasty but slightly too rich for me. Served with blue cheese beignets, these seem like a step too far. I have Cornish mackerel served with pickled fennel and harissa. It was as nice a piece of the fish as I've ever had, sweet and perfectly cooked. The fennel was a subtle side, heated slightly by the harissa, cutting through the oiliness of the fish without overpowering it. Other options included a healthy sized portion of deep fried squid and a plate of cured salmon served with a sweet mustard potato salad that Dr Vole combined with a beetroot, goats cheese and sweet potato dish for her main options, preferring these to the larger plate options on offer.

My rabbit hot pot was exceptional. Strong flavours combining well to deliver a dish the equal of anything I've eaten at York & Albany. Tiny carrot cubes gave a sweet hit to the small oven pot packed with gamey rabbit. As a side, I went for a portion of truffle chips, the only off note of the meal for me, they arrived slightly limp and over-salted. 
The dessert list is similarly bijou, but of enormous interest. A prune and almond tart was rich, moist and (from the tiny amount I was allowed to sample) perfectly balanced. My bitter chocolate pot came in the cliched kilner jar and was as nice a pot as I've had (if not necessarily bitter) set off with a lovely homemade honeycomb. 


The buzz and chatter in and about the tiny dining room appears deserved, and I hope that they're able to sustain this level of quality in the months and years to come. If you find yourself in the area, and aren't on a pilgrimage to Tayyabs, then I'd certainly suggest stopping by.
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