Refettorio, Crowne Plaza Hotel, 19 New Bridge Street, London EC4 (020 7438 8052). Meal for two, including wine and service, £40-80
At Refettorio, the new venture from Giorgio Locatelli, many of the best things require no cooking. I find this encouraging, because I am currently suffering major stove angst. Mine is a humungous lump of stainless steel, wider than the marital bed. It is manufactured by an Italian company whose name is hysterically funny to my uncircumcised friends, but less so to those of us who've had the chop. We've owned it for five years and the repairman from the service company has been in so often he's getting to watch my kids grow up. The fan has been replaced. The thermostat has gone on the blink. For a while it would heat up and then cut out entirely. I ask you: what is the point of having a gastronomic status symbol costing a grand and a half if the bloody thing is unreliable?
Recently I contacted the company directly to see if they could send someone from head office to see if we were unlucky enough to own a lemon. They wanted proof of purchase. Do you keep proof of purchase for five years? I don't. They wanted a receipt for every piece of work ever performed.
Funnily enough, because I didn't think this would be a long-term problem, I didn't keep them. Apparently I don't, therefore, fall within their 'goodwill parameters' and, accordingly, they now don't fall within mine. It's working OK at present, but every time I turn the thing on, I worry it will cut out in the middle of my crispy pork belly, which would be a disaster. If anybody else has suffered similar problems with their shiny Italian uber-cooker do let me know.
So back to Refettorio, where you could eat without ever troubling the stove. This is because at the heart of the menu are lengthy lists of Italian cheeses and charcuterie - 50 in all - available in small platefuls for £2.50 to £5. It is the perfect place for anybody who has ever stood in an Italian delicatessen wishing they could gobble up the contents of their shopping basket there and then. The L-shaped room, part of the new Crowne Plaza Hotel in London's Blackfriars, is stylishly designed for the task at hand. It's mostly solid wooden tables - a long refectory job in the middle, a few booths, plus, at the back, a more formal dining room.
What you are getting here is perfectly sourced ingredients. We had a plate of rich, thick-cut salame di cinghiale and another of Tuscan prosciutto sliced from the bone. There was some five-year-old parmigiano, crunchy with salt crystals, served in solid chunks, as it should be, some grassy little olives and an immense selection of breads for £3.75. My only quibble is less with Refettorio than with the heavy-handed health and safety laws with which they must comply. The charcuterie is stored in a back-lit fridge for all to see (looking beautiful) and, as a result, the prosciutto was just a little too cool to really release its flavour. No matter.
There are, of course, cooked dishes. From a long list of fried stuff, including squid and artichoke, we chose some sweet little prawns, so juvenile they could be eaten in one go, heads and all. They come ever so lightly battered, with a dish of home-made mayonnaise. Pasta dishes are as interesting as you would expect from Britain's leading Italian chef. My tagliatelle with rabbit ragu was solid and gamey and good value at £7.50. An eggless pasta with broccoli and Italian sausage suffered, we agreed, from a little too much authenticity. Eggless pasta just isn't very nice.
There is also a list of grilled meats and fish, and to finish, a few sorbets and tarts. But, as I say, they all play second fiddle to the cheeses and fabulous cooked meats. If my stove packs up again, and it probably will, I may just make like Refettorio and avoid cooking altogether.
