LATVIA: 4 places to eat during Riga Restaurant Week

a frosty Riga Town Centre, Latvia
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Riga Restaurant Week and the European Region of Gastronomy

Next year, Riga is going to have something big to shout about. The capital of Latvia - along with the surrounding Gauja River Valley (which includes the central Latvian cities of Sigulda, Cēsis and Valmiera) - will become a European Region of Gastronomy. Only three gastro-centric spots on this continent are awarded the accolade each year, and in 2017, Riga-Gauja will wear this badge alongside central Denmark and the Danish city of Aarhus, and the Lombardy region of Italy.

The popularity of Nordic cuisine has seen a surge in recent years, with Scandinavian-influenced restaurants and pop-ups springing up in most of the world's major food cities. But food from the neighbouring Baltics? Not so much.

That's a great shame, because we're talking about similar climates with four distinct seasons, equally bountiful natural larders, and innovative and ambitious chefs, all eager to showcase the quality produce that can be found not far beyond their front door.

autumnal sunshine in Riga's central park
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 To coincide with Riga's big culinary gig next year, I was invited to visit the city during the autumn biannual Riga Restaurant Week (they do another in spring), that took place in October. The premise of this event - and one I know Budapest does too, as I happened to be there during theirs - is for restaurants across the capital to put on set three-course menus at a very reasonable 15 or 20 Euros, that run for the whole week.

It's a great idea for an emerging foodie city. It encourages people to try somewhere new, means almost everyone can treat themselves to some of the finest seasonal dishes on offer in the city, and all for not very much at all.

Latvian cuisine, as it stands, might not be the most refined. Its pillars are often noted as rye bread, fish from their internal waters, curd-based dishes, meat cooked in pork fat, smoked meats and fish, and nuts and berries. Their ancestors engaged in a lot of hard physical labour, and needed heavy sustenance to fuel it. So traditionally, meals are dense. But these days, restaurant kitchens have modified traditional recipes, coming up with contemporary versions that add a sophisticated and light touch, which both taste great and are a joy to look at.

My guide below suggests a few restaurants to try that take part in Riga Restaurant Week. A second post to follow suggests ways in which to fill the rest of a two day trip, both in and around the city (LATVIA: how to spend 2 days in and around Riga). My advice: if a visit to Riga wasn't on the cards, 2017 is the year to change this. Coincide it with their spring or autumn restaurant week, and you'll leave very well fed indeed.

Where to eat in Riga

1) Valmiermuizas Embassy

Dzintars Kristovskis, a European Region of Gastronomy 2017 ambassador, and Head Chef at Valmiermuizas Embassy, began his career at a kebab house over 10 years ago. Things have changed a lot since, and in his restaurant today, there are two main focuses: showcasing local Latvian ingredients, and serving great beer.

The beer comes from the Valmiera-based Valmiermuiza microbrewery, where it's brewed slowly and deliberately. Their intention is to maintain and develop traditions of beer making and drinking in Latvia, complimented by elegant food from Dzintars kitchen.

Expect menus crafted from locally grown products, including seasonal wild herbs and plants from Latvian meadows and forests. I enjoyed ox heart tartare with pickled celeriac, confit onion, elderflower, blackcurrant, and cider and charred onion consomme. There was a gloriously sharp square of seabuckthorn candy with spruce salt. Venison came with rowanberry, pear, parsnip and ale sauce. And dessert was moss (actual foraged moss), chocolate, charred quince, cranberry sorbet, and chicory sponge. All that, for 20 Euros.

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Valmiermuiza's Embassy, A.Briāna Street 9a, Riga

Riga Restaurant Week dishes at Valmiermuizas Embassy, and chef Dzintars Kristovskis
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 2) Rocket Bean Roastery

We all know Scandinavians and those from the Nordic countries are big fans of coffee. It's the Finns that come out on top as the highest consumers of coffee per capita in the world, with Sweden also featuring in the top echelon. And in neighbouring Latvia, the coffee-quaffing theme continues.

Rocket Bean Roastery is a coffee production site, coffee shop, restaurant, and coffee equipment store. Here, you can get a fabulous pour over, as well as really great food from their Michelin-experienced chef, Artūrs Taškāns. I really like the idea that in the evening, the coffee shop-by-day atmosphere is transformed into an intimate and atmospheric dining venue, with candlelight and clinking wine glasses.

I popped in at lunch and ordered a la carte, as the three courses offered as part of the restaurant week would have been too much, considering I had that planned for the evening. But it included the likes of mushroom soup with rice noodles, slow-cooked egg, crispy piglet belly, and finger lime. And venison chop with kale, black-pepper beetroot purée, and venison broth sauce.

I ordered an absolutely gorgeous onion soup with chives and sour cream, then some truffle mashed potatoes with kale, chives and chervil, a chocolate mousse cake with flower petals, homemade bread, and a great Colombian Chemex brew (I am aware this was also three courses - it seems I just can't help myself). I went out the back to check out the roastery and got coerced into a game of table tennis with chief roaster Aigars, before eating. I lost, but it was close. What a nice bunch of people.

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Rocket Bean Roastery, Miera Eela 29, Centra Rajons, Rīga, LV-1001

beautiful food and great pour over coffee at Rocket Bean Roastery, Riga
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 3) ENTRESOL

A Provence chateaux and shabby chic is the interior theme at ENTRESOL, a restaurant with multiple award-winning chef Raimonds Zommers at the helm. Classic dishes are cooked with contemporary methods, so don't be surprised to find parts of your meal dehydrated, fermented, or cooked in a sous-vide.

From the a la carte, Latvian dishes are easily identified with an icon, for diners that want to specifically experience the local cuisine. Prices for mains usually range between 12 to 20 Euros, so the three courses for 15 Euros, or 20 Euros with the drinks pairing, is a real steal. 

Starters came in the form of a trio of delightful knapas (Latvian small plates): venison tartare with potato foam, white mushroom broth with beer meringue, and dried brown trout with quince jelly and sour cream. For mains, slow-cooked sea trout with pumpkin purée, quince, and vadouvan curry sauce, and dessert was an autumnal plate of apple, five ways.

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ENTRESOL, Elizabetes Iela 22, Centra Rajons, Rīga, LV-1050

Riga Restaurant Week dishes at ENTRESOL
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 4) FERMA

FERMA is most definitely my kind of restaurant. Art Deco accented interiors that are an ode to the functional modernism of the mid-twentieth century, great service, and high-end food without the stuffiness. 

Nestled in the quiet part of the city overlooking Viesturdārzs Park, it's a space that reflects the very middle-class neighbourhood its in, promoting langurous lunches and long evening meals. I hear in the summer, you can enjoy a country-style picnic on the terrace, prepared in a real smoking house, and cooked over an open fire.

A chef at the age of 23, the owner of the first private culinary school in Latvia at 25, and chef-patron of his own restaurant at 29, Māris Astičs is the accomplished man behind FERMA. It's only here that you can order a steak of aged Latvian beef, the house bread keeps with the traditions of Latvian breadmaking and is how the kitchen starts each morning, and local products feature prominently on the menu: wild venison, Baltic salmon, Latvian shrimp, and so on. 

As part of the 20 Euro deal (only available between 12pm - 5pm here), I had a glorious and silky pumpkin and quince soup with goat cheese and wild mushroom toasts, root vegetable stew with porcini cream and wild deer roast beef with juniper glaze, and a sea buckthorn cream cake with basil and honey biscuits.

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FERMA, Valkas Iela 7, Centra Rajons, Rīga, LV-1010

Riga Restaurant Week dishes at FERMA
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Note: This is a sponsored post in collaboration with the Riga and Latvian Tourism Boards. All views remain my own, as always.

Related posts
LATVIA: How to spend 2 days in and around Riga

FRANCE: Nobu Matsuhisa comes to Paris at Le Royal Monceau Raffles

bathroom in the Deluxe Collection Room at Le Royal Monceau - Raffle Paris
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The country's first Matsuhisa restaurant opens at Le Royal Monceau - Raffles Paris

World-renowned restaurateur and celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa has an internationally recognised name, although it's usually either his given or his family name hanging above a restaurant door. Both are associated with the high-end fusion cuisine that blends traditional Japanese dishes with Peruvian ingredients. His restaurants go by the name of Matsuhisa and Nobu, and together they can be found at 39 sites dotted around the globe.

The most recent addition to this galaxy of stars is the very first in the whole of France, Matsuhisa Paris, which opened in Le Royal Monceau in March this year, and is Nobu's sixth Matsuhisa restaurant.

Under the guidance of Executive Head Chef Hideki Endo, this latest outpost has both adopted and adapted the celebrated formula of Peruvian-Japanese cuisine from Nobu's other restaurants, whilst managing to incorporate some local French delicacies. Think algae tacos with black truffle, crispy oysters with caviar, and wagyu beef with foie gras ravioli and ponzu sauce.

Matsuhisa Paris at Le Royal Monceau - Raffle Paris

If 
If you'd like to put your trust into the kitchen entirely, go for the omakase menu, which roughly translates to a multi-course feast chosen by the chef on the day, dependent on the best ingredients he has to hand. I've tried an omakase menu at a sushi bar in Tokyo, to much delight. It's often the best way to go if you're feeling indecisive. You don't know what you're going to get, it just keeps coming, and it's all very good.

From the all round very well executed menu I sampled during my visit, highlights included the sashimi trio: yellowtail with jalapeno and yuzu soy sauce, scallops, and seabass with dry miso. The spinach salad with dry miso might have been my favourite dish from the entire meal, and the wagyu with antichucho sauce (cumin, ají pepper and garlic) was glorious. Our table asked for some off menu otoro (the fattiest and most prized part of the tuna belly), because if you don't ask, you don't get. And we got. Marbled, delicate, gorgeous.

the Deluxe Collection Room at Le Royal Monceau - Raffle Paris
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If you're popping over from London to pay the new Matsuhisa a visit, and you fancy pushing the boat out, it makes sense to spend the night in one of Le Royal Monceau's exquisite rooms. The property reopened in 2010 after a dramatic and complete two year transformation by designer Phillippe Starck. And the result is impressive.

The Deluxe Collection Room I stayed in is inspired by the 1940s and 50s, with a walk-in closet as big as my bathroom at home. And every inch of the actual bathroom is tiled in mirrors. No hiding in there. 

It's also worth noting that one-way tickets on Eurostar now start at just £29 (based on a return journey), if you book far enough in advance. Which is a steal, and probably cheaper than getting to the rest of the UK.

Note: the meal at Matsuhisa Paris, the travel on Eurostar, and the stay at Le Royal Monceau Raffles were all hosted as part of a media visit. All views remain my own.

Related links

FRANCE: Review of Hotel Marignan, Paris
CAMBODIA: Review of Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor, Siem Reap

HUNGARY: Babel Budapest

Fine regional dining from Hubert Hlatky-Schlichter at Babel Budapest

Babel Restaurant

In the heart of one of Budapest’s most charming districts, lies a highly sought after fine-dining restaurant, without the stuffiness. Owner and restaurateur Hubert Hlatky-Schlichter tells me its name, Babel, relates to the The Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon. “People wanted to touch the perfection of God,” he explains. “We want to achieve something similar, but more accessible, in our kitchen.” 

The venue is an ode to the craftsmanship and bountiful produce found within Hungary’s borders. At least three quarters of ingredients are from the country’s own larder, and the sleek and sophisticated interiors and accessories are almost entirely Hungarian-made. From Ajka Crystal glasses, to the fully Hungarian wine list boasting no less than 170 bottles, Babel Budapest is a place that shows respect for the country’s traditions. 

Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the menu itself. “Our personal goal is to show the flavours and food of regional Hungarian cuisine, and that it’s not just paprika and pork,” explains Hlatky-Schlichter. It’s one that takes inspiration from the dishes of the former Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, paying homage to familiar classics, but interpreting them in the unique and contemporary Babel style. 

A favourite dish of home cooks across the country, hearty krumplis tészta (Hungarian potato pasta), manifests into an almost unrecognisable version finished with a delicate hand. At Babel, the traditionally crudely chunky Jókai bean soup is translated into a refined version fit for the most discerning diner.

Babel Restaurant

Whilst these perennial favourites might look exotic when on Babel’s plates, once a native Hungarian takes a bite, familiar memories are revived. And this is part of Babel’s ambition; for people to not only visit for the excellent food, but also for an emotive experience. 

An a la carte and tasting menus are available - some paired with wine, cheese, or both - along with a degustation option for vegans. Once you’re in, expect to stay a while; Babel rarely turns its tables and the level of service and kitchen competence means you’ll be in no hurry to leave.

This meal was hosted as part of a commission for the Budapest Finest Magazine, where this article also appears.

Céleste at The Lanesborough, Knightsbridge - Review

Celeste at The Lanesborough
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It's been a whole ten months since I last penned some thoughts about a London restaurant; last year's ambitiously-priced Christmas menu at Quattro Passi, and gamey delights from The Hyde Bar in Knightsbridge, were the last two.

Regular readers will know I sodded off galavanting shortly after those write-ups, mostly to eat my way around the rest of the world. I did quite well with that, but I've been back for a couple of months now, and through catching up with friends, peers and contacts, I was invited to pop over to The Lanesborough near Hyde Park, to check out the recently refurbished, rebranded and let me tell you, resplendent, Céleste.

I've dined in this space before, under its former guise of Michelin-starred Apsleys. I spent the best part of a frigid December afternoon warming the cockles with a giddying concotion of champagne, Early Grey and mulled wine, whilst getting hopped up on finger sandwiches, toasted teacakes and homemade scones. And a very pleasant - if not somewhat squiffy - visit it was too. It was their Christmas-time champagne afternoon tea, in case you hadn't already figured that out.

Celeste at The Lanesborough
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In December 2013, about a year after my first visit, the whole property closed. The hotel was stripped back to its shell, then each corner meticulously refurbished and transformed by world renowned interior design studio, Alberto Pinto. Eighteen months and truck loads of money later, it reopened it's doors. The Lanesborough never did comment on how much the refurbishment cost; a telling sign in itself. The official line on the matter was “no expense has been spared,” - quite apparent once you're in it.

I'm a sucker for a pretty room, and this space lays it on thick. Richly decorated with 250 bas-relief mouldings surrounding the frise under the glass domed roof - through which light floods in - there are fluted columns, powder-blue walls, and English crystal chandeliers, the largest of which weighs in at 200kg. It might be over the top, but that's the point. And I love it. It's still a very easy place to relax, despite everything going on on the walls around you. Which is key.

Executive chef at The Lanesborough is Florian Favario, formerly head chef at Epicure in Paris. He was chosen by chef patron Eric Frechon - Paris' most esteemed three Michelin-starred chef and a leading figure at Oetker Collection's Le Bristol since 1999 - as the person to lead one of London's most celebrated addresses into a new gastronomic chapter.

The Lanesborough is often referred to by it's unofficial name, 'the most expensive hotel in London'. With doubles coming in from £720 per night and the lavish Royal Suite at an incogitable £26,000 per night, the whole property is likely dismissed as entirely unattainable by most.

Except, that this doesn't necessarily apply in Céleste. Mere mortals can bask in a slice of this lavish grandeur for an altogether more accessible £44 for a set three-course lunch menu, £48 for a traditional afternoon tea, or £55 / £95 for a five-course / seven-course dinner menu.

Celeste at The Lanesborough
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There was a terrific posh scotch egg - a Burford Brown encased in mince of chicken and rosemary-spiked lardo from Colonatta, crispy, with a rich and golden runny yolk and earthy truffle mayonnaise (£14 a la carte, also on set lunch menu). My brother had a cold starter with lobster - good chunks of meat presented as a sort of salad, with tagliatelle-style ribbons of a vegetable we couldn't identify and forgot to ask about. 

A somewhat better result than what the must-have fad gadget of the moment - the spiraliser - would produce, I suspect. But it's annoying this irritating trend of making vegetables look like pasta has reached beyond the blogs and cookbooks of the skinny / affluent / female bone-broth elite of West London, and into restaurants. My brother would have preferred actual pasta. The creamy dressing was bland, and the dish was altogether a bit uninspiring - the weakest plate from both our meals (can't locate on website for price). 

I had lobster in my main, with conchiglioni pasta and it's own light and frothy bisque. I enjoyed it, but I suspect I would have done so much more with the absence of peppers, the flavour from which I felt had no place on the plate. The capers though, definitely (£34 on a la carte).

My brother nailed his choice - roast Norfolk black chicken, confit crispy leg, and girolles mushrooms. As good as it reads - savoury, umami, like the chickeny essence had been extracted from 50 fine birds and concentrated into one plate's worth of food (£24 a la carte, also on set lunch menu).

Laudable desserts came in the form of a vibrant mango eton mess, shards of meringue sticking out like ship sails in the wind (£12.50 a la carte, also on set lunch menu), and a gloriously seductive Guanaja chocolate mousse with streusel crumble, demonstrating some impressive paint brush skills (£12.50 a la carte).

I had a glass of good, light red with my meal, and there were champagne cocktails with a clump of golden British honey on the end of a fork to stir in, so potent in its nectar we could smell it before the waitress had turned the corner with them from the bar. Heady and delightful.

Liked lots: the unashamed opulence of it all, their scotch egg and chicken, desserts and service

Liked less: the lobster salad starter

Good for: basking in magnificent surroundings; impressing a date; pretending you have a room 

Note: This meal was kindly hosted by the restaurant. All views remain my own.

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quattro passi, mayfair - review

Should you, dear reader, happen to be a Russian oligarch, Middle Eastern oil baron or a member of an acutely irritating, internationally worshiped teenage boy band, then allow me to assist with your New Year’s Eve plans.

Quattro Passi on Dover Street in Mayfair launched in September this year. At the helm, two Michelin-starred executive chef Antonio Mellino, heralding from the original restaurant on the Amalfi Coast which boasts the glittering accolade. 

On the menu, Amalfi delicacies, from the region of Campania in Southern Italy, with ingredients flown in three times a week. And in the L-shaped dining room, hand-carved leather wall panels, French silk wallpaper, and diners who aren’t shy of a few bob.

They are offering a New Year’s Eve menu of seven courses with a glass of champagne on arrival for £222 (before service, I presume). There is the promise of a DJ below deck in the private lounge area, with the chance to dance the night away as you bid farewell to 2014 and what could have been the deposit on a new car, should you succumb to its bar loaded with fine cognacs, brandies and whiskies.

Unashamedly, this restaurant is tailored to the well-lined pockets of the affluent and uninhibited business accounts. Outside the New Year’s Eve offering and on a normal day, antipasta dishes are between £18 - £40, intermediate courses £16 - £42, mains around £28 - £50 and desserts £18 - £22. You won’t find a bottle of wine for less than £50, and a lot of them are over £100. 

As the old adage goes, “something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it”, and it seems there are quite a lot of people willing to pay these prices.

It’s also a place for celebrities. It’s polished and dimly lit, and has a chandelier made from a thousand silk petals (celebs - they love that sort of thing). In the short time it’s been open, clients have included Lindsay Lohan having lunch, Valentino hosting his book launch dinner there with Kylie, Hugh Grant and Anne Hathaway, not to mention a host of royalty from far off lands.

I am that person that gets excited when the slip of paper that comes out of the Sainsbury’s till tells me I’ve got £0.72 off my next shop. Therefore, I can safely assume I don’t fall into Quattro Passi’s target market. But I was invited to a trial run of this New Year’s dinner, and I will write about the menu objectively, with my money-is-no-object hat on, my favourite of the imaginary hats.

Marinated carpaccio of Sicilian red prawns in a blueberry sauce

Probably best I couldn’t detect the blueberry in this. Otherwise, very well seasoned raw prawn, somehow fashioned into a square sheet on the plate, with a couple of quenelles of what I think were soured cream. Perhaps a little too prawn-y for some (as my companions mentioned), but it was good for me.

Potato veloute, poached quails egg, white truffle from Alba

A shallow bowl of an interestingly textured velouté, a little gelatinous, but with good flavour and a generous shaving of punchy funghi.

Signature risotto with Sorrento lemon zest

I very much liked the look of this - a piatto bianco - white risotto on a white plate, with strands of zest within the mass that would have been easier to spot had the lighting been brighter. It looked like it had great texture, the plate given a good shake to spread the rice. And the grains were beautifully cooked - fantastic bite. 

But the flavours did not work for me. It seemed too sweet, more like a rice pudding, with medicinal tasting lemon. It was as if it had been grated from a waxed fruit, which I’m pretty certain was not the case.

Interestingly, it was the favourite dish of some of my fellow diners. Which just goes to show how subjective food and eating it is.

Oven-baked daily catch fish fillet with potatoes mille feuille

The catch that day being sea bream, and a very nice plate it was. A well seasoned, well cooked bit of fish - although it could have had a crispier skin - with good potatoes and crisp pak choi nicely dressed with lemon. Nothing too spectacular, just solid.

Fassone beef Fillet with Barbaresco wine Jus de Viande with broccoli flan and porcini mushrooms

The meat here was spot on - succulent and pink. The flan was an interesting take on the vegetable - never before have I had my broccoli wobble. Porcini mushrooms were a good call, the jus tying it all together nicely.

Tagliolini pasta with artichoke hearts and lobster

This pasta shape was a new one to me. It’s a variety of tagliatelle - the classic noodle from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy - and is long, paper-thin, and cylindrical in shape.

This was a very good dish, wonderfully savoury, with delicate slithers of artichoke hearts and the occasional presence of crustacean. My only gripe being there wasn’t more of it.

Soft sponge roll with chantilly, raspberry coulis and pistachios crumble

A sponge roll, how retro. Like something from the birthday parties of my childhood, it evoked the associated memories. Which are all good. Sharp coulis filled the roll, as well as there being a blobbed crescent of it, along with a small quenelle of tart sorbet. A tangy plate to end on.

Accessories

Bread was very good and made on site, stacked on a small set of portable shelves, a range of rolls, flatbreads and grissini. A little olive oil for glugging would have been good with it. Expect a wooden box of assorted petit fours to wrap up.

We were very generously treated to a wine flight to accompany the meal, each tasting swirled in burgundy glasses big enough to house a goldfish or two (even for the non-burgundy wines).

With alcohol, service and a drink or two at the bar, expect to pay around £350 pp for this New Year’s evening. But the burning question is of course, is it worth it? 

For me - who falls squarely into the ‘mere mortal’ category - no meal is worth £350, whether New Year’s Eve in Mayfair or not. But for many, these sorts of figures are lost down the back of Karelian birch, gilded brass, Kremlin-inspired sofas all the time, without being missed. 

And for those people, this would likely be a very pleasant evening indeed.

Liked lots: service was wonderful, particularly from the exuberant restaurant manager (I forget his name, sorry)

Liked less: the dining table was too high for wee me, sat against the wall on the banquettes. So much so that for the first time in my dining life, I had to sit on a cushion to eat. I'm not even that short (5'3.5 - that half makes all the difference)

Good for: laughing in the face of financial restraint

My rating: 3.5/5

Find the menu on Zomato.

Afiyet olsun.

Note: I was invited as a guest to this restaurant.

frescobaldi, mayfair - review

Swing a right down an alleyway opposite Hamley’s on Regent Street, and you’ll find yourself on a quiet and short strip of road called New Burlington Place. The only people that seem to know about it are the cabbies that turn into it from adjoining Saville Row for a three-point-turn, and to drop off the well-suited elite; there’s little else there. 

Except, that is, for new Italian fine dining restaurant and wine bar, Frescobaldi. Despite an almost complete lack of passing footfall, little launch fanfare, and having only being open for two weeks, it was almost full late Saturday lunch time. 

People knew it was on this invisible road, and were coming for it specifically.

If the name rings a bell, you may have seen their restaurant on the lower ground floor of Harrods, their branded Laudemio olive oil sold at Fortnum & Mason, or come across their outposts in Florence and at Rome’s Fiumicino airport.

Their major claim to fame though, and the focus around which this new restaurant is based, is that the Frescobaldi family produce wine, and have done for a very long time indeed (more information on that in this recent Independent article). 

It’s an involvement that dates back centuries. During the renaissance, we’re told they traded bottles with Michelangelo for works of art, and they were major financiers to the kings of England, with receipts signed personally by that great wine-quaffer, Henry VIII. 

Most of their nine estates can be found in the hills around Florence and Siena, and a range of wines from the likes of Mormoreto (a single-vineyard cru of Castello di Nipozzano) to the flagship Frescobaldi cuvée (Brunello di Montalcino Castelgiocondo Riserva) take pride of place on the new restaurant’s menu.

To launch this first independent site in the UK, the Frescobaldis have partnered with Good Food Society, a new hospitality venture promoted by fellow Turk, Levent Büyükuğur (also founder of Istanbul Doors, an international restaurant group with over 40 venues).

They’ve done very well with the interiors. A great wall of glass for the frontage, striking frescos of Italian renaissance characters painted onto the tiled walls, a great central column with shelves housing Tuscan paraphernalia and bottles of wine poured by the glass - it’s a handsome space.

At Frescobaldi, you’ll find the largest menu you’ve ever seen, in size rather than content - open, it’s almost as wide as the wingspan of an albatross. The extra maneuverability the broad and comfortable chairs provide are as good for big bottoms as they are for accommodating the perusal of the massive things; best to read them turned sideways for the sake of a smashed wine glass.

In it, a confident and concise menu with less than a handful of entries under each section: antipasti, carpacci, tartare, primi piatti (pasta), to share (salads, cheese and charcuterie), secondi di pesce (fish mains), seconde di cane (meat mains), contorni (sides).

Bread was great and made on site, the soft and salty focaccia still warm from the oven, crisp Sardinian flatbread entirely void of moisture, and the basket comes with a bottle of that Laudemio olive oil to glug at your pleasure. 

There were rippled sheets of seabass carpaccio with pink peppers, soy sauce and fresh curly celery strips, that could have done with a touch of astringency (£16). The lactating Puglian burrata, with rocket pesto and ripe tomatoes, was just about the creamiest I’ve encountered (£12.50). 

I thought the marinated black Angus beef with lentils and courgettes would come as a salad with cooked slices of steak, and I expected it to be dull. It was actually like a plate of joyous lemony bresaola, with a little gathering of fantastically dressed firm green lentils and tiny cubes of courgette (£15).

The wide ribbons of pappardelle with the veal cheek ragu were gorgeous - great bite and deep yellow from yolk. The pappy but pleasing sauce, quite sweet from the meat, needed the contrasting texture it got from a flourish of small crisp rosemary croutons scattered before serving - very good (£15).

There were small and soft dimpled gnocchi with porcini mushrooms and an earthy umami sauce, although I do like my dumplings sporting the marks of a longer fry (£15). The ossobucco was a loaded plate of flaking veal, flanked by a barrier of unctuous white polenta, and with a great slug of marrow that slipped out of the bone after just a little persuasion (£23).

Tiramisu came in an unusual format, a mound of yellow sponge, coloured from extra yolk I presume, with a moat of coffee sauce and bitter toasted beans. It was cleared in the same amount of time it took me to register it had arrived (£9).

They've been smart in making more of their wines accessible to diners, by offering small and reasonably priced pre-grouped wine flights. You get a taste of three glasses (125ml each), and there are different groups of three to choose from, ranging from £16 - £68. I had the Red Flight “Sangiovese” at £21.

Two female maître d's were wearing the same sophisticated monochrome dress that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a cocktail bar, and service was charming and very attentive, if a little too enthusiastic at the beginning of our early lunch reservation, when we were the only occupied table.
  
Fellow diners ranged from groups of American visitors, to distinguished and impeccably dressed Italian matriarchs enjoying a girly lunch, to young couples, to a Turkish family, which may have been a Mr Büyükuğur influence.

Like I said, I don’t know how these people knew it was there. I did, because my visit was in the capacity of critiquing it for the consumer publication for British Turks & Turkophiles, T-Vine (thanks to Mr Büyükuğur’s involvement).

But know about it, people seem to. And now you do too. 

Liked lots: accessible and reasonably priced wine flights, interiors, there’s also a very becoming bar below deck to enjoy both wines and spirits in

Liked less: Frescobaldi won’t win any prizes for ‘bargain restaurant of the week’, but considering the location and setting, it’s not trying to. That in mind, with a bit of considered ordering, you can keep a reign on the bill and enjoy a very good meal

Good for: respite from the hectic shopping streets of the West End, impressing a date

4/5

Find the menu on Zomato.

Afiyet olsun

Note: I was invited as a guest to this restaurant.