Ziani
IT WAS in Chelsea that I learnt to twist, aged four, in the kitchen. I lived there from nought to seven and from 16 to 19; and I have an affection for the place which has little to do with the plasticised, carriage- lamped shopping arcade it's become — the past is another borough.
Not that anyone who lives there would care to admit it. The smug arrogance of its inhabitants (pace those few who've man- aged to resist the shock of the new and, 20 years on, are still weaving or writing in their artisan's cottages) is one of its more irritating aspects. Chelsea might have seemed, or even been, central when David Hemmings was Zipping up and down the King's Road in an open sports car, but the most excitement you'll get on a Saturday afternoon now is in Waitrose.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, and the local Waitrose is very good, but what I like about Ziani in Radnor Walk (351 5297) is that it's the sort of restaurant you feel has always been there. A converted corner house, with the statutory Venetian blinds (wholly appropriate here since this, as the name might suggest, is a Venetian restaurant) and restrained awning, Ziani does its bit to raise the general level of Italian restaurants over here: you can aim higher than a bottle of Valpolicella and a plate of lasagne.
Inside it's all cream and buttermilk yellow. The tables are hung heavy with linen and a profusion of glass and cutlery (again, entirely fitting since it is the Vene- tians who claim to have introduced the fork). At the tables sit chic Italian au pairs, figlie di papa now reduced to dressing at Joseph Tricot, Coca-Cola sipping ex- managers and rock managers trying to look like heads of corporations. Most of them would be wearing black roll-neck jumpers if it weren't for the fact that their second wives, nearer the age of their daughters, would object. Women together don't seem to eat here much except at lunch-time — this in the far from welcome tradition of not only Italian restaurants.
In Italian Food, Elizabeth David quotes the 16th-century Venetian Gerolano Zanetti's diatribe against the culinary out- rages of the French: 'French cooks have ruined Venetian stomachs with so much porcherie (filth) sauces, broths, extract- s. . .garlic, and onion in every dish. . . Meat and fish transformed to such a point that they are scarcely recognisable by the time they get to the table'. I can see his point: at its best Italian food — perfect, simple, entirely unmessed up — is unbeat- able; French food can seem even impure by comparison. Now, Ziani's menu is not going to get French chefs committing hara-kiri in kitchens all over London, but it does try to give an indication of what il ben mangiar can be like.
Start with artichoke with bagna cauda (a warm sauce-dip, originally from Piedmont, or garlic, anchovies and olive oil); risi e bisi, the rich Venetian pea risotto; or some of the best-cooked .pasta I've had out of Italy, with mushrooms, the glossily brown sauce earthily pungent, seafood, ham, cream and walnut or a piacere — however you want — and never underestimate it just with good olive oil, garlic and a fine speckle of red chili and grass-green pars- ley. If you're going to order the mozzarella in carozza be warned: the spicy tomato sauce it comes with is very spicy indeed; if you have doubts, ask for an ordinary tomato sauce.
I'd stick to fish for a main course — sardines split open and filleted and grilled with garlic, capers and breadcrumbs, baked sea-bass, charcoal-grilled monkfish — or the other thing Italians eXcel at, liver, here sautéed with sage. And for those who have a taste for it, too, there is a superb fritto misto di frattaglie a plate of kidneys and strips of liver and breadcrumbed brains and sweetbreads quickly and per- fectly fried, for there is an art to it.
In common with nearly all Italian res- taurants, Ziani's puddings are not worth bothering with; there's really only the usual caramelised oranges, spongy tarts and profiteroles. House white at £5.25 a carafe is astringent but refreshing; a couple of bottles of it, plus one of Mineral water, drinks before and two courses each for four of us came to just over £65. The only thing to be warned against is the noise: unsurpri- singly perhaps, people in Chelsea have louder voices than anyone else in London.
Nigella Lawson
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