The best thing I can find to say about Ristorante Semplice, the latest smart, modern Italian in an area of London that needs more of the kind in much the way I require an additional chin, is it made me think of Ian Dury. This is not because it is the sort of gaff you can imagine delighting Dury, but because of the staff and, more precisely, their dress.
For a nation that has probably produced more artistic genius than any other, there seems a pronouncedly bovine streak in the Italians, as will be appreciated by anyone who's watched phalanxes of young couples aimlessly filing through the centre of Turin on a Saturday night, allowing their eyes to graze and glaze through the windows of one boutique before wordlessly moving to the identical next.
For a decade, every smart new Italian restaurant in central London has looked and felt very much like the last, and this uniformity extends to the clothing. Here, in this cramped, soulless space packed with studiedly scruffy young male diners who look like football agent wannabes, they observe that uniform to the letter. Seeing the staff done out in the inevitable deep grey suits and kipperish ties brought to mind that high tempo, staccato bit from Dury's Sweet Gene Vincent that goes, "White face, black shirt, white socks, black shoes, black hair, white Strat, bled white, died black."
That said, there is nothing rock nor roll about Semplice, nor much that's notably simple about a decor that contrives the soullessness of the first-class air travellers' lounge (ambient mushroomy colour scheme, loads of highly polished wood) despite gaudy, swirly plaster walls that look like golden cake icing.
Perhaps it's the confidence that comes from a shiny, wide-knotted tie, but the staff seemed a little self-besotted. A glass of champagne was out of the question, we were told, because "we're an Italian restaurant and serve spumante" (an irritant when bottles of champagne feature on the wine list and the spumante is repulsive), and the maître d' took ostentatious umbrage at the sending back of a bottle of white wine that tasted like sugar water. When I asked him to suggest something else, he said that if we didn't like the first, he certainly wouldn't recommend another. The second bottle, a Collio Bianco, was worse, but although I wimped out of returning it, the restaurant counterstruck all the same, ignoring requests to take our order for some 15 minutes. Eventually, grudgingly, it was taken, and what followed was a mixed bag.
All three starters were sparkling. Raviolo filled with ricotta and adorned with a hazelnut dressing drew yelps of pleasure and eventually a pliant, "That was so delicious, I want it again." A clear Piedmontese chicken broth was "a really excellent, delicate soup", and came with "lovely, curvy tortellini". My "home made" egg sedamini pasta (why they bother with that nonsense, I do not know; when the chef comes from Locanda Locatelli, who imagines he's going to use Buitoni?) was an engagingly rustic dish, coming with a fine venison ragu and black cabbage sauce.
The main courses, however, were unimpeachably mediocre. Pan-fried calves' liver with sautéed spinach and "traditional" (rather than neo-modernist) balsamic vinegar, was clumping and bland, and my wife's dainty eyebrows ascended like a Harrier jump jet when proudly informed there was no mustard of any kind. Roast shoulder of Hardwick lamb - an oddity, much like the Cornish cod, in a place that makes much of its authenticity - was fatty and flavourful, but had an off-puttingly spongy texture. My "roasted and pan-fried rabbit" in artichoke sauce did come from Italy, but should have stayed there, it being rubbery, tasteless and, despite the double exposure to oven flames, lukewarm.
Puddings saw a return to the form of the starters, a noble chocolate tart coming with a bitter almond sauce and apple fritters cutely matched with cinnamon custard cream. But the aftertaste that lingered was that of a determinedly supercilious restaurant with much less to be cocky about than it imagines, and offering very few reasons to be cheerful.
Rating: 4.5/10
Telephone 020-7495 1509.
Address 10 Blenheim street, london W1.
Open Mon-Sat, lunch noon-2.30pm, dinner 7-10.30pm.
Price Three courses à la carte with wine, around £45 a head. Set lunch, £15 for two courses, £18 for three.
