o. off to lunch with Anthony Horowitz, the author whose
TV work includes almost everything with 'murder' in it — Murder Most Horrid, Murder In Mind, Midsomer Murders — and whose wonderful bestselling children's books include Granny, Groosham Grange, and the Alex Rider books, which are sort of James Bond romps and which my own 10-year-old son adores. Indeed, just before the latest Alex Rider book, Eagle Strike, was out in the shops, Anthony's publisher sent me a copy, as did Anthony himself, so I thought I'd pass Anthony's copy on to my son's friend Paul, another Alex Rider fiend, whose birthday it was. All well and good, until I picked up my son from Paul's party and asked if Paul had liked his present. 'Yes.' said my son. 'But he wondered why -I'm so looking forward to our lunch, Deborah" was written in it,' Since then, I have not been able to look Paul's mother in the eye, as I think she thinks I'm an old cheapskate, which I would be if I was, but I'm truly not. Listen; last year I bought my partner a bloody great piano for Christmas, while he bought me a plastic nose on which to keep my glasses because I am always losing them. Price difference? Only about £1,200, I would guess. But did I mind? No, it's the giving that counts, or so I told myself once I had stopped crying, which was round about April. I still don't know what to do about Paul's mum. How long can you avoid meeting someone's eye at the school gate? Luckily, I do have something of the unfocused look about me, largely because I have lost my glasses. I don't think I'd have minded about the rubbish red 49p plastic nose so much if it had done the job.
Anyway, being a forgiving kind of person, who can forgive most things (plastic noses aside), I decide to forgive Anthony, even though he should not give books to people without alerting them to any personal messages that may be inside. Indeed, not only do I decide to forgive Anthony, I also decide to take him to Locanda Locatelli, London's latest rave eatery, the place that has won awards left, right and centre as well as upwards and downwards and off at angles of 45 degrees. The chef is Giorgio Locatelli (the dark-eyed handsome one who isn't Jean-Christophe Novell°. it's Michelinstarred, and the critics have not only unanimously raved about it but have also named it the best Italian in Britain. Yippee!
Uh-oh. I think I yippee-ed too soon. Disappointment from the off, I'm afraid. The restaurant turns out to be in a gloomy arm of the gloomy Churchill Inter-Continental hotel, and thus has something of a gloomy-arm-to-agloomy-hotel feel to it. The mood is not lifted by the decor, which is gloomy Seventies, with fish-eye mirrors and serving stations hewn from, 1 think, ginormous pillars of teak. Such teak is probably exorbitantly expensive, but, as Anthony points out, the effect is up there with the self-adhesive mock teak stuff you can buy on rolls from Fads. Have you ever noticed how things that are very, very expensive always look amazingly cheap? Dior handbags; Julien Macdonald leather trousers. Neither would look out of place in Poundstretcher. Perhaps that nose cost more than I think. Maybe it's a Gucci nose. Maybe I should have been more excited about it. After all, how many people can say, 'You like my nose? It's Gucci.'
When we arrive, our table isn't ready, so we sit in the white-leathered bar area until we are told that it is, at which point we obediently get up; but then we are told, no, sorry, it isn't quite, so we sit down again until a minute later, when we are told that it is, so we get up all over again. As someone who finds almost all exercise repulsive, I am quite worn out by this time, and can barely stagger to our table through all the other tables. On each table a single decapitated orchid part-floats and part-drowns in a glass bowl. I find orchids the spookiest of blooms at the best of times, and a decapitated one is even spookier.
The waiter — a young Italian gentleman with a riveting Rudolph Valentino hairdo — brings us breadsticks, home-made breads and a saucer of dipping oil. He tells us what today's specials are, which is a waste of time, mostly because we are so transfixed by his knife-edge, scalprevealing side-parting that we don't listen. Still, Anthony bravely goes for today's special as a starter, in the hope that he is going to be nicely surprised which, alas, he is not How best to describe it? Well, like a plate of Parma ham accompanied by what appear to be puffed-out samosas in which someone has neglected to place any filling. (Deep fried gnocchi. maybe?) Anthony is hardly swept away by enthusiasm. 'Rather forlorn, thy and cheesy. Like a mutated party snack,' he sighs. On a brighter note, my starter, Insalata di zucchine e ricotta di Norcia (grilled courgette salad with mature ricotta), is rather delicious. Crispy slices of courgette interleaved with a buttery-soft, buttery-smooth ricotta. I have yet to taste better. I will never buy ricotta from Sainsbury's again.
Next, Anthony goes for Sogliola arrosto con macedonia di legumi fagioli di Risina e pesto (roast Dover sole with potatoes, peas, Risina beans and pesto, at £27.50). Again, not a great success. He does not find the combination of peas, beans and pesto the most visually appealing thing. 'It all looks rather regurgitated,' he says. Is it tasty, though? 'It tastes better than it looks,' he says. He then adds, 'Which isn't difficult.' For some reason I'd ordered the fresh tuna with wild rocket and cherry tomatoes. I'm not sure why now. It's possibly the most boring thing I could have had. Why didn't I go for the home-made tagliatelle with kid-goat ragout? I think it was probably because I'd tried to cook some fresh tuna steaks earlier in the week, and they'd turned out as they always do when! try to cook them: as dry, brown and leathery as an old shoe. This tuna is moist and wonderfully pink in the middle, but still tuna nonetheless. The rocket? There's mounds of it I've nothing against rocket, but there is only so much you can eat without thinking you're ploughing through a compost heap. I gave up about halfway through, at about the same time that remembered that the wine we'd ordered when we first sat down had not arrived. When reminded. Rudolph looked suitably apologetic, but when you're paying £50 a head or thereabouts, one assumes that you are paying for not having to remind anyone of anything.
Pudding? I have the coffee and amaretto parfait with mascarpone, marsala and banana, which wasn't that memorable, frankly, while Anthony has something similar, only his comes with 'violet jelly'. We are intrigued by violet jelly, which turns out to come in little cubes and looks like the horrid jellied bits from a pork pie dyed purple. Maybe we've just hit Locatelli on a bad day. Maybe the service isn't always so forgetful. And they did let us sit there until nearly 5 p.m. So, even though we won't be rushing back, it's not all bad news, and I did get Anthony to sign another copy of Eagle Smke with the words, 'Happy 11th birthday, Paul.' Now all I've got to do is break into Paul's house, swap this copy for the other, then convince his mother that any memory of the first book is purely delusional. I can do that. If I can convince myself I've got a Gucci nose, I can convince anyone of anything.
Locanda Locatelli 8 Seymour Street, London WI; tel.' 020 7935 9088; fax: 020 7935 1149.
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