IN France this summer, lunches were spent poking our little
darlings every time they deviated from the vertical and hiss- ing: 'Look, why can't you sit straight like that little French boy over there? No, over there; the one with the grey tweed jacket and the bow tie. He hasn't moved a muscle for over four hours and he looks younger than you. He can't be more than five. No. He's not dead. He's just a well- behaved little French boy like you should be. Sit still. No. I'm not saying you should be a boy, I'm saying you should sit straight.'
So, back in London, we chose a posh Italian. But as we approached Zafferano's long, understated Knightsbridge frontage, I spotted an elderly woman at a window table wearing a large, wide-brimmed pink hat. Alarms began to clatter in my head. I thought I was invulnerable to restaurant folly, but I do not usually eat Saturday lunch in the vicinity of ladies wearing hats. There was no hint of a wedding.
Once inside, I relaxed. There was no other headgear. It didn't even seem partic- ularly posh. The clientele consisted mainly of middle-aged men who looked like Tim Rice, younger men who looked like Tim Rice's sons, and wealthy women who resembled nothing so much as Tim Rice's wives and daughters-in-law. Zafferano is a small place: two rooms with perhaps 60 covers in total. The red bricks of one wall are bare, the rest are colour-washed a pastel yellow. Rather for- mal upholstered dining-chairs seemed Incongruous against this very 'new wave' Mediterranean background; I took them as a hint of serious gastronomic intent. The first courses were the best. A house salad was built around a mackerel fillet, wrapped in slivers of belly pork, pan-fried and then cut into small gobbets. Mackerel is the most underrated fish on the British market. Encasing it in crispy pig flesh added texture to four pungent but sophisti- cated mouthfuls. The saffron vinaigrette of the salad element was ideal for a man who likes his dressing slightly too sweet and his leaves rather too liberally coated. A more Pedantic critic would have made a niggard- 1Y note for his review. o My wife began with a cuttlefish salad. '3ePpie, which are common throughout lit- toral Italy but, like most fish, particularly tiny and succulent on the Adriatic coast, are similar to squid but firmer-fleshed and tastier. Cooked in its ink (which this wasn't), cuttlefish is a famous speciality of the Veneto, but it is also typically Sardini- an. It made me think, having read about his hare sauce (Sardinia's most famous del- icacy after spit-roast pig), that chef Geor- gio Locatelli is probably a native of that island. As for the cuttlefish, it was moist and pliant because perfectly timed, and subtly sauced in a black ink dressing which contrasted dramatically with the glistening white fish.
For pasta, I chose homemade egg lingui- ni with courgette and tomato (substitute aubergine for the tomato and this is anoth- er staple of the Sardinian kitchen). To my tooth, the pasta was slightly overcooked: there's no point making fresh pasta if you can't feel the 'bite'. And though in such a sauce as this blandness is almost a virtue, I could have done with more salt and per- haps a herb or two.
I much preferred my wife's pasta sauce of lobster and chilli. I thought it well bal- `Could we skip the wing of bat, I've got a rodentia anted, with each ingredient individually clean and strong. Naturally, the lady didn't like it. She said it lacked the depth and pungency of a good seafood base, and that the chilli overpowered the delicate flavour of the lobster.
For her main course she chose pork fillet with artichoke and potatoes. The potatoes were deemed a success — waxy and firm and the pork was 'okay' (when is it anything else?), but the artichokes, although boast- ing 'a nice smoky flavour', were discovered to be 'rather pithy'. The sauce was 'beauti- ful looking but, again, lacking a certain depth of flavour'.
I had three thick chunks of calves' liver, perfectly seasoned and cooked, and served in an intense, velvety, treacle-brown reduc- tion of balsamic vinegar and (presumably) brown stock with red wine and perhaps some marsala. It was as such sauces should be, the zinging undertones of fruit not being overwhelmed by the sweetness of the caramelisation, the imposing colour and viscosity belying a hint of lightness on the palate. Personally, I can't stand such rich, heavy food, but that is hardly the chefs fault.
Puddings were agreeable rather than wondrous. My tiramisu was a cool and stylish interpretation of posh Italian choco- late trifle, and serving it at room tempera- ture on a hot day was an innovative and clever departure from the 'here's one we made last week' norm. The blessed mira- cles who are our daughters (having gob- bled penne with tomato and armfuls of parmigiano for their main course) neglect- ed their sorbets, which was a shame because they were nicely flavoured and refreshing. Their mother chose orange tartelette with pine nuts and Cointreau ice- cream but was disappointed to discover that it was not, in fact, a tartelette but a sponge. Worse, it was a sponge not greatly infused with the aroma of oranges. The by now thematic lack of intense flavour was also ascribed to the firmly textured, good- looking ice-cream.
Mrs Simon having by this juncture emp- tied a half bottle of an unfamiliar Soave, which she pronounced to be 'buttery and delicious', it was time to go home. Zaffer- ano had been a pleasant place for Satur- day lunch. The service was impeccable. And if the cucina was slightly more casalinga than I would like to think it might be in the evening, the price (i135 including tip) reflected that. Finally, I tried to camouflage the carnage I had wrought on my shirt during lunch with a couple of well aimed splashes from the interesting bathroom sink. Events soon escalated, leaving enormous dark blue splodges on my light blue vestment. As we retreated I heard someone say, 'What a sweaty man!'
Zafferano, 15 Lowndes Street, London SW1; tel: 0171 235 5800. £21.50 for a three-course lunch.
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