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Cock
Restaurants
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London,
Critic rating
Reader rating
Description: L'Anima's head chef; Francesco Mazzei offers contemporary Italian cuisine in this modern and intimate restaurant.
Phone: 020 7422 7000
Website: http://www.lanima.co.uk/
Open: Mon-Fri 7-11.30am 12pm-2.30pm 5.30pm-12am
Oustanding service: Karolina Raukuc, from Poland, has worked at L'Anima for a year
I love nostalgia. I love the way it has the power to make what's intrinsically worthless seem valuable. That big old sweater you can't bear to bin; music you haven't played any time in the last ten years but it would be a crime against the heart to throw away. The good news is that nostalgia is officially making a comeback. A hard winter and hard times mean we've gone running for the tried and tested. The only peculiar thing is that it's the Eighties that is the decade currently exciting the national imagination. Apparently, next season women will be wearing shoulder pads; triangular silhouettes paying homage to the stars of Dallas and Dynasty. And Michael Jackson is on tour in the summer.
Nowhere encapsulates the heady glamour of the Eighties as much as the City, where excess started in the Eighties, celebrated with copious amounts of fizz and world-class food. Pay packets may have taken a nose-dive but people still have to eat, and as it's been a while since I visited the capital's money-making centre for supper, I took Guy for dinner at L'Anima.
The restaurant is new but the City hasn't changed a bit. It still looks freshly minted. Endlessly tall, grey buildings make you feel as if you're starring in a futuristic blockbuster. We turned the corner into Primrose Street and I reflected that whoever came up with the local place names must have had a warped sense of humour, since there isn't a bit of green in sight.
L'Anima (which means 'the soul', a very un-Eighties word indeed) is fronted entirely by glass and blends in well with its man-made surroundings. Outside, bare trees are decked with teeny blue lights, but the view over an electricity sub-station, although topical in these energy-aware times, is perhaps a little unfortunate, and this restaurant has especially cheap signage (proving again not all things French are stylish). Inside, there's an abundance of stone: great slabs of granite lining the walls and pale marble underfoot. It is an austere room. Snowy white linen clothes the tables and on each sits a white glass vase crammed full with overblown scarlet roses. The look is medieval and rather beautiful.
The service was outstanding. Bread was brought immediately to the table, accompanied by an olive oil that was gutsy, peppery and excellent (I've become a bit of an oil aficionado since spending so much time in Italy). Guy began his meal with pasta, which he said was fine, if not the most exciting starter in the world. My own Angus beef carpaccio with homemade pickles was delicious, the rare meat sliced so thinly that it looked pinkly translucent on the plate.
Next came Guy's turbot. This meaty fish often falls short of perfection, and so it did in this case. Overpowered by the addition of sun-dried tomatoes, it tasted like something you might be given by an overenthusiastic amateur cook, rather than a professional kitchen. I had the best turbot ever recently at Theo Randall at the InterContinental and I'm afraid that's raised the bar to new heights. Thank heavens for my own main course, slow-roasted black pig belly, which was full of flavour. This once-cheap cut of meat made me feel warm, well-fed and, yes, nostalgic.
A pre-dinner glass of rosé, followed by a bottle of excellent Barolo, meant that we were in no mood to exercise caution when it came to pudding. My rhubarb flan came with an egg-shaped scoop of pink ice cream and decorative little splashes of different fruit sauces. Guy's panna cotta was perfect, as white and wobbly as an old-fashioned blancmange, though he thought there was a touch too much chocolate on the side.
The place is clearly very popular. The new evening opening hours have come about by popular demand (unusual in a non-residential area) and a friend who visited recently at lunchtime said it was packed.
We gave our fellow diners the once-over. The unspoken dress code seems to be super-smart. Guy was convinced the man on the next table was Max Mosley dining with a young lady the evening before his pathetic performance in Parliament last week, but I couldn't be sure.
It just so happened that two women (heavily outnumbered by men) were sitting close enough for us to listen to them. Loaded down with labels, each handbag and item of jewellery they wore was instantly recognisable by its costly initials. They were walking monuments to conspicuous consumption. Yes, it does still exist - which should make some of you feel nostalgic.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
