Sartoria: a smart West End Italian

I’ve always been a fan of Francesco Mazzei’s cooking so when he suddenly left his previous restaurant L’Anima I couldn’t wait for him to pop up somewhere else.

It’s taken a while but now he seems to have found his natural home in the revamped Sartoria in Savile Row.

Like L’Anima it’s a posh sort of place designed to appeal to city boys on expense accounts (this part of Mayfair hosts a number of hedge funds) though I noticed there were a fair amount of what looked like well-heeled Italian businessmen there too. It’s warmer and more convivial than L’Anima with plenty of potential for people watching so you want to make sure you get a corner table rather than one that leaves one of you with their back to the room. (We managed to get ours changed. I can recommend table 6.)

Seduced by the idea of lobster tagliolini my friend Thane and I rapidly dismissed the affordable option of the set lunch menu in favour of exploring the à la carte. We were going to have a starter and a primo then felt we ‘should’ have a main and at least a couple of the sides should be explored. All in the interests of doing the menu justice, you understand, not because we’re pigs.

The lobster was just fantastic with fat chunks of sweet meat, silky pasta and a really intense shellfish sauce. We also loved the burrata with ‘torpendino’ tomatoes and smoked aubergine with an amazing hit of fragrant basil leaves and a chunkily cut beef tartare with anchovies and truffle. The fritto misto we ordered was slightly less impressive with as much courgette as fish though there were some delicious little monkfish tails lurking in it. And someone had been a bit too heavy handed with the nutmeg on the double baked potatoes with mozzarella, a dish that sounded more seductive than it tasted, even for this potato lover. Nice fresh rocket salad on the side though.

On the next door table a couple were tucking into a vast veal milanese that would comfortably have served three, served with an overflowing bowl of courgette fries. Seeing us eyeing it up they generously offered us a taste - and that was tops too - cut more thickly than the usual escalope from good veal with plenty of flavour.

After this we resolved to resist the zabaglione we’d had our eye on but hadn’t reckoned with Francesco sending out a couple of desserts - a really faultless tiramisu - not too creamy, not too sweet, and a clever, ravishingly pretty plate of lemon-curd stuffed meringues with crisp shards of rhubarb. It would have been rude not to really ...

We kept our bill under reasonable control by sticking to wine by the glass, a Verdicchio and a Pieropan Soave to start with, and a gorgeous Fiano di Avellino from Guido Marsella which was perfect with the lobster. It would be easy to be led into spending a good deal more by the persuasive waiters - although there are bottles for as little as £25 on the wide-ranging Italian wine list.

One of the big attractions of Sartoria is that it’s open all day so should you suddenly crave a tiramisu after a particularly fraught shopping session in Regent Street you could indulge the whim. Or, even better, plan a power breakfast. I particularly like the sound of the eggs purgatorio with spicy tomato and ‘nduja sauce (Francesco, coming from Calabria, is the man who started the whole nduja craze).

Sartoria is pricey but if you go with the idea of dropping in for a dish it’s affordable. And very cossetting, I must say.

Sartoria is at 20 Savile Row, London W1S 3PR. Tel: 020 7534 7000

Disclosure: we were given complimentary desserts and aperitifs

Pot Luck Club, Cape Town

All discussions on where to eat in Cape Town tend to end up with a recommendation to eat at what is still generally regarded as the city’s best restaurant, The Test Kitchen. Which is not a wholly practical suggestion as it’s almost impossible to get a table.

You may fare better with its younger, more laid-back sibling The Pot Luck Club which is situated in the same former industrial complex called the Old Biscuit Mill but on the top floor with dramatic views over the city

Even then we had to pull strings to get in but admittedly that was on a Saturday night.

It is - pause for a groan - based on a small plates formula but at least they have the nous to not bring them all at once and deliver them in some kind of logical order from lighter flavours to more intense ones. You need time to appreciate both the beauty of the plates and the myriad flavours and textures of the food.

The menu is divided into different sections - salty, sweet, umami, sour and bitter and sweet ending. You jot down what you want on a pad. It started with a plate of ‘Pepe’s’ carrots (have you noticed how on-trend carrots are?) with goat ricotta and roasted sunflower seed brittle. I’m not sure it was particularly umami but it was a lovely contrast of sweet roots, creamy cheese and crunchy seeds - almost like a deconstructed carrot cake. Frugally the carrot tops were used as a garnish.

Fish tacos were two crisp little discs of fried tortilla sandwiching a filling of marinated fish, avocado and refried black beans The chef obviously likes Mexican flavours. The warm freshly baked ciabatta on the bread board (South African bread boards are incredible) was also made with masa flour

A dazzlingly pretty plate of springbok carpaccio (right) with smoked pinenuts and burnt honey and soy dressing topped with wafer thin slices of ..what? Mooli, I think …salad leaves and edible flower petals brought us back to sweet (it was lovely with the 2009 bottle of Ashbourne Sandstone, the lush blend of Sauvignon and Chardonnay, we were drinking)

Then a spectacularly original take on a tartare, this time intensely umami: miso-cured trout, ginger tahini, teriyaki-braised sweet potatoes under a dome of fine slices of radish (also great with the wine)

Next beef tartare on toast with parsnip crisps and an artistic array of avocado cream blobs of varying sizes which made a smooth counterpoint to the raw meat (texture colour and flavour are so skilfully combined here). Then, more striking still, from the sour section, ceviche with jalapeno tiger’s milk, quinoa, samp (corn) and ethereal, lacy masa crisps.

By this time we were on to the reds we’d brought - both light, bright and youthful: Duncan Savage’s 2014 A Fine Line (a blend of cinsault, grenache and syrah) and the deliciously swiggable 2015 Rall cinsault. Cinsault may be my new obsession this year.

There was a slight change of pace with two warm dishes, a tender tentacle of octopus, crusted and deep-fried, served with doenjang (fermented soybean) mayo, pickled cucumber and a Jackson Pollockesque splattering of octopus teriyaki

And finally (of the savoury dishes we ordered) pig’s head saam - the fatty meat clevery offset by pineapple kimchi, miso dressing and bean powder, all designed to be rolled up, laarb-style, in lettuce leaves.

We were too full, really, for a dessert but I couldn’t resist seeing how they’d handle one so ordered a summer berry gratin with yuzu ice cream and a rakishly slanted disk of kataifi (vermicelli-like crisp Greek-style pastry) which made a refreshingly summery end to the meal.

At the current rate of exchange (23 Rand to the pound, 16 to the dollar) Pot Luck Club is the most incredible bargain. (That stunning ceviche dish was R80 or £3.50, for example.) You just need that fabled luck to score a reservation. Personally I’d turn up and hope for a no show. If you can’t get in you can always eat at the very pleasant Burrata downstairs which I featured in my recent match of the week.

The Pot Luck Club is at 373 – 375 Albert Road, Woodstock, Cape Town. Email: reservations@thepotluckclub.co.za. Tel: 021 447 0804

I ate at Pot Luck Club as a guest of Wines of South Africa.

Ellory, Hackney: well worth the detour

With city centre rents unaffordable for most first-time restaurateurs there’s a growing trend for the most exciting openings to be happening in local neighbourhoods. That’s certainly been the case in London for a while.

But what’s the incentive to take what can easily be an hour’s schlep across the city involving convoluted transport links to eat when you probably have perfectly good restaurants on your own doorstep?

Well a full 125ml glass of Agrapart’s 'Les 7' 1er cru, one of the best grower champagnes around, for just £10 might be one of them and that’s what Ellory in Hackney is offering to sweeten the blow of having to hang around on a rainy night for the D6 from Bethnal Green*.

There’s plenty more to tempt at this stylish small wine-focused restaurant which was opened back in November by chef Matthew Lucas Young and sommelier Jack Lewens in Netil House, an arty space which houses over 100 studios. Both have an impressive pedigree. Young was the much-admired chef of the Wapping Project and Mayfields, Lewens has worked at The River Café, Quo Vadis and Spring.

Having both eaten out for lunch we passed on the fairly priced £38 5 course tasting menu in favour of picking our own dishes (brownie points for offering that alternative and for delivering them one by one in a logical order rather than the bizarre hot-to-cold mish-mash favoured by so many restaurants these days.)

There’s real skill in the flavour, colour and texture combinations. A coarsely chopped slightly smokey venison tartare came with nutty Jerusalem artichokes, a clever riff on meat and two veg that almost looked, in my inevitable instagram snap, like a Dutch old master (above). It was perfect with the Agrapart.

The smoked eel with choggia beetroot and pear which came next was even better, a lovely contrast of warm, smoky flesh, sweet fruit and earthy vegetables. Young likes to limit the number of ingredients on the plate, an approach that permits a wine (in this case a very young but not the least awkward 2015 Muscadet One Shot of Granit from Domaine de Bellevue) to shine. With a seasonal dish of squid with blood orange and chicory we had a richly textured 2010 Arbois Cuvée des Docteurs* from Lucien Aviet made from Melon a Queue Rouge, a local variant of chardonnay. Mature chardonnay with a fresh seasonal salad? Absolutely!

But the best dish - and pairing - was the shared main we managed to find room for, described simply on the menu as turbot, brown butter and carrot which was served two different ways - roast and as an unctuous purée with some wilted greens on the side. White, orange and green - you can see how Young applies his art school training. With that we had a glass of a new (to me) orange wine called La Macération du Soula, a gorgeously rich skin contact Vermentino from Gerard Gauby in the Roussillon. That was worth the detour too.

We skipped dessert in favour of cheese, again described deceptively simply as Berkswell and pear. But again, what presentation. A flurry of Berkswell shavings over slivers of pear with shards of crisp, well-baked flatbread on the side. And a further ‘taster’ (er hem) of Michel Lafarge’s still surprisingly vibrant 2006 Passetoutgrains L’Exception - another vinous treat.

You’ll get the best out of Ellory if you just leave it to Lewens to pick your wine for you. There’s not so much an intention to match the ingredients precisely but to pour an interesting wine with an appropriate style of dish which Lewens does with great skill. That said it could turn into a more expensive evening than you intended. Our bill for two was £99, champagne excluded* - a bit indulgent for a school night (and way over the Government’s guidelines) but certainly cheaper than a comparable meal in the West End.

And I did succumb to an Uber on the way home ….

Ellory is at Netil House, 1 Westgate Street, London E8 3RL and currently open from Tuesday to Saturday from 5-11pm. *Apparently the nearest station is not Bethnal Green but London Fields on the overground!

Disclosure: We were treated to a glass of champagne by the management who recognised us when we came in. (I was with Niamh of @eatlikeagirl).

45 Jermyn Street, Fortnum and Mason

It’s hard to stand out amidst the flood of new restaurant openings that greet each week in London at the moment but the magical words ‘caviar trolley’ give you as good a chance as any.

The trolley - which is made in New Cross of all unlikely places - is the centrepiece of 45 Jermyn Street, department store Fortnum & Mason’s glitzy new in-house restaurant which has taken over from the somewhat staid Fountain. It’s entirely typical of the company’s flamboyant CEO Ewan Venters, a Willy Wonka-style impresario who has brought a touch of indulgent playfulness to this venerable London institution (and apparently taken profits from £300k to £3.8m a year in the process.)

If you succumb to the trolley you can choose from oscietra or beluga caviar at £3.20 or £6.70 a gram respectively - which also buys you some mini baked potatoes, sour cream, toast, chive blinis (a little rubbery) and a soft mass of scrambled eggs which are expertly stirred at the table by the maitre’d. (I asked him if he called himself the caviar sommelier but apparently not. I’m not sure he’d quite bargained for his scrambling duties.) I’d say you need rather more than the minimum 10g of caviar you're required to order to balance the extras - more like 20g which would make it expensive unless you go for the Siberian sturgeon at £2 a gram but Fortnum's has never been about belt-tightening. Add a glass of champagne at £12 and service and you’re looking at around £70 a head.

There are cheaper options - and despite the presence of main courses such as Dover sole and the rather delicious rich, buttery spaetzle (German-style pasta) with lobster I had after the caviar I think this is the kind of place to pop in for a drink and a dish - a late breakfast, a high tea or an after-theatre supper rather than a three course meal. I was going to say it’s the kind of place to take 10 year olds for a half term or holiday treat but discovered the coupes and floats I thought were tailormade for tinies contain a fair amount of booze. This is a place is for grown-up kids.

What you’re paying for at 45 Jermyn Street is good old fashioned glamour. It’s all smooth squishy orange banquettes and subdued flattering table lights*. If you're not on a caviar budget you could drop in for breakfast for about a tenner to eat what I’m sure would be a pukka bacon sandwich or an egg-topped marmite crumpet and a pot of tea. I might well do just that.

*which aren’t quite brightly lit enough, note powers that be at 45, to illuminate the menus for those of us who are short-sighted. Bigger print or a bolder font please.

I ate at 45 Jermyn Street as a guest of the restuarant. You can book on 0207 205 4545 or reserve on the website. Usefully it's open all day 7 days a week.