1111111111111111111111k FOR the past few years every other restau- rant
to open has been an Italian one. I hes- itate now before reviewing anywhere that bears that familiar neo-Mediterranean stamp, but in Zafferano's case my hesita- tion was little short of an injustice. I can't pretend ignorance: I have eaten here before, and well enough to know better. But I felt sensitive to overkill: there had been enough talk in these pages of polenta and pasta and suchlike, and so I restrained myself. But I shouldn't have: Zafferano, unlike the many other Italianate joints around, is the real thing. What you are given to eat is not good, modern, Italian- influenced food, such as you find at the hands of countless competent, often tal- ented chefs up and down the country, but proper Italian food, the sort Italians eat. I was put on to the place by Anna del Conte, the best Italian food writer in English, who, indeed, should know.
Before going, it's easy to have unhappy preconceptions. The restaurant is in Bel- gravia and has a fancy name: it sounds fussy and expensive. That it is not the for- mer is a relief; that it is not the latter either is extraordinary. This is perhaps the best straightforward Italian food you can get in London at the moment — I have a great regard for the Halkin, but the food there is more elaborate — and you can order four courses of it for £23.50.
The name of the place is, I imagine, in honour of the golden ingredient of the risotto milanese: Zafferano's chef/propri- etor Giorgio Locatelli is himself from Milan, or just outside. I came across him before when he was at Olivo in Ebury Street. The food was good there — sunny and, strange for a northerner, distinctly southern — but not as accomplished as it is now. His cooking differs from much of the London neo-Mediterranean stuff; it is both simpler and more elegantly executed. This is a man who has worked over here under Anton Edelman, and in Paris at the Tour d'Argent and Laurent, and has done stints in hotels on the Italian lakes and in Switzerland. He is not a wild, untempered spirit; he cooks with gusto, but not without formality. Also, being a northern Italian, he likes butter. All British chefs who cook Italian food talk authoritatively about olive oil being the cooking medium of Italy. Sometimes I wonder if they've ever eaten there. Yes, Italians do use a lot of good olive oil, but in the north they flavour insistently with butter. Even in Liguria I've been given pasta with pesto, sweetened and creamed with a good walnut-sized lump of it.
To talk of eating four courses sounds excessive, but — just as in restaurants in Italy — the antipasto is a significant part of the menu. Forgo, rather, a pudding, which is always the Italians' weakest course. At my most recent visit, I ate some of a plateful of tongue, thinly sliced and as soft and smooth as satin, with a dynamical- ly astringent salsa verde, some sformato of potatoes and pancetta with a Fontina cheese sauce, and some fat sardines, split open and stuffed with a parsley-infused mass of breadcrumbs, and fried seemingly without grease. The sformato, which is something between a timbale and a savoury cake, was the only choice with which I was less than ecstatic: the pancetta was just a bit too salty. But it was cooked perfectly: the ramekin-moulded potatoes were crisp on the outside, creamy and deli- cate within.
Next, the pasta. I remembered how good the linguine with clams and chilli were from last time, and had to stop myself ordering them again. I'm glad, because I was quite bowled over by the pizzocheri. Up till now, I'd only ever read about this Lombard dish of thick pasta ribbons made with buckwheat flour, cooked with cab- bage and cheese and sage and potatoes. It was ravishingly good, wonderfully wintry and, really, astonishingly light. Pappardelle with tender little broad beans and dark shards ofrocket were good as well, but I was too consumed with the pizzocheri to take more than a casual pleasure in them.
Involtini di maiale — small, sausage- shaped, herb-stuffed rolls of pork — were miraculously tender (pork is sold so lean these days that it's nearly always tough) and piled at the side with juicy courgettes, cut into chips and fried till crisp. I had lamb's brains, soft and sweet and creamy, exquisitely countered by a sauce infused with ham and sage and olives.
Puddings were not such a success, but this just corroborates my view that the place is echt Italian. Still, one of them, a cassata with the texture of a moussy semifreddo studded with fruit and nuts, was very good, though I was less keen on the strawberry coulis that was draped around it.
Even so, this was an exhilaratingly won- derful dinner. And for the two of us, with two glasses of Prosecco and four courses each, one extra antipasto, a great deal of bottled water and a couple of canarini at the end, the bill, without service, came to £70.50 Zafferano, 15 Lowndes Street, London SW1; tel: 0171 235 5800.
Nigella Lawson
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