Del Buongustaio
THE WEST of London is already studded with good Italian restaurants: Riva in Barnes, the River Café on the Fulham/Hammersmith borders, Cibo and L'Altro in West and North Kensington respectively, and the Osteria Antica Bologna in Clapham. Now there's another addition to the list of commendables: Del Buongustaio in Putney, younger sister to the Osteria Antica. The River Café (to which I plan to return in these pages short- ly, it having pulled off the extraordinary and welcome feat of producing food as good as, if not better than, ever while reducing prices) still represents the pinna- cle of what can be achieved. But the fledgling Del Buongustaio comes the near- est to it.
Apart from being exceptionally good Italian restaurants, they haven't got much in common. Del Buongustaio is more, unsurprisingly, in the mould of the Osteria Antica Bologna: small, wood-lined, cheery, rustic. Aurelio Spagnuolo and Rochelle Porteous have, even in tagging their second restaurant 'osteria con cucina', continued to insist on their theme of an Italian inn transplanted to London. The room is tiny; walls are a soft melony tan; there is open brickwork; a blue and white tiled kitchen is visible through the arching hatch. Wine bottles are clunked together on wooden shelving and dinner plates hang above them. Light emanates from bulbs placed within sawn-off amphorae plunged into the walls, a rather arresting oddity. But any charges of tweeness are swiftly and con- vincingly countered by the place's boister- ousness. The waiters zip about the room shouting 'arrivo io!' con brio and the food is sturdy and exuberant.
Patrizio Rizzi, the chef, comes from Milan and has lived in Bologna, but his food comes from all over. And not one of those modern culinary clichés, the now over-familiar dishes of new-wave Italian, is to be found on his menu; the bruschetta and balsamic vinegar brigade will have to be adventurous for once.
An oval dish of shiny black olives laced with orange zest lies on the table. Pick at them cautiously, and reserve your appetite for the piatto pizzicarello, the plate of bits and pieces that most order as a starter; but, if you share it among the table, even if there's just two of you, you can persuade yourself to eat it while you order the rest. This plate changes not only nightly but, more than that, the chef just decides what to put on as he composes each one. Some- how this seems a good sign. We had squares of erbazzone, the odoriferous spinach and ricotta pie from Emilia, little slabs of tongue sandwiched in flaky crust and deep fried, fresh snowy pecorino, and polpette da poveri, pine-nut-encrusted bready, garlicky meatballs-without-the meat.
The antipasti were so good that we ordered far too much from the rest of the menu. Nothing disappointed. The wild hoar livers were perhaps a bit too dry, but the damp spinach and unctuous mashed potato that accompanied this strong, aromatic fen- nel-seed-sprinkled offal gave the dish a suc- culent roundedness. Large prawns wrapped in prosciutto were fat and devourable. Large tortellini made out of chestnut flour and stuffed with basil and chestnuts were perhaps too cloying, but intriguing all the same. Calabrian meatballs, tender, austere- ly seasoned, were doused in a magnificently spicy sauce which brought them to fiery life.
Pudding is never my favourite part of the Italian meal, but duty prevailed— and prof- ited. Sapajean, the Lombard version of zabaione, made with red wine rather than marsala, came in a thick, sweet, perhaps too gluey dollop, but the diplomatic° it accompanied was a masterpiece. Usually a pudding of rum-soaked sponge fingers lin- ing a mould filled with chocolate and cus- tard, here panettone was used instead, and the custard was light and eggy — the whole like a cross between bread-and-butter pud- ding and creme caramel.
House wine was just about all right, although I'd go up a level or two. Not diffi- cult to do with a reasonable and inviting list of wines from Italy and the New World, predominantly Australia. No doubt this is partly in deference to Ubaldo Formica, the bravissirno Italo-Australian restaurant man- ager.
Count on spending about 125 a head for dinner in one of the most enlivening, rewarding, jolly Italian restaurants around. This isn't hype: this is love.
Del Buongustaio, 283 Putney Bridge Road, London SW15; tel 081 780 9361
Nigella Lawson
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