I SHOULDN'T mind and I shouldn't com- plain that the
restaurant I originally intend- ed to review this week turned out to be the last restaurant reviewed by my locum: any food eaten at the Brackenbury is not wast- ed or to be regretted. But it's hard not to be allowed to give voice to one's enthusi- asms: food is not a subject on which I am happy to be mute. Admittedly, it is going on for three years since the Brackenbury opened; all the same, the time seemed ripe — evidently — for a reappraisal. But this is ungenerous or self-centred of me, for you have been told about the place: it's just that I wish I had been the one to do so.
I feel rather less obsessively possessive about Orso's new (or newish) west London spin-off. After the Brackenbury, eating at Orsino hardly fires one with evangelical zeal, but it will do you no harm to know about it. I did, in fact, go to Orsino just after it opened, which was jugt before my temporary retirement, but decided it would be fairer to refrain from comment, at least for the time being. Rather as I had felt the brilliance of the Brackenbury needed to be tested by waiting to see if the lustre would wear off when the newness had, so I felt that Orsino's false start might right itself in time.
Well, it has and it hasn't. Service is cer- tainly better. At times, in the beginning, it tipped over into rudeness — a strange thing coming from an American restaurant chain. The place is fuller than it was, but unfortunately the people who fill it do not add to its allure. At lunch it has a rather dull executive feel; in the evening it enjoys the patronage of minor celebrities of the weather-girl variety. You can't help feeling that the real fun is going on up the road in 192 or L'Altro.
The menu, in manner and content, does not so much remind one of the Orso menu as duplicate it. It is like eating in a restau- rant which is a copy of itself, so that even its authenticity seems counterfeit. And it's not by any means beside the point that when Orso opened in Covent Garden it was in the vanguard of the neo-Italian bruschetta and balsamic vinegar movement. Since which time W11 — home of the new little bear — and environs have done a pretty convincing job of turning the cuisine into something of a local speciality. Enough already.
But there are mitigating factors, not least of which, as with the parent restaurant, are the pizzas. We ate one — with gorgonzola, spinach and Parma ham — while deciding what to order next. The base was as thin and crisp and dry as a poppadum, the young spinach was as thick and soft as a sauce on top of it. Minus the usual mozza- rella the pizza had an austere, elegantly ungooey texture. The gorgonzola added smokiness, the ham a honeyed saltiness. This was perfection, the best pizza in London.
Chicken, white bean and spinach soup was, surprisingly, a pale, clear broth in which floated raffia-like snips of spinach, white meat somewhere between chunks and shards and the odd, and, to be frank, unnecessary white bean. I'm not sure about how Mamma used to make it, but it was certainly more like a soup which had its ori- gins in a domestic rather than a restaurant kitchen, and I mean that as praise. Grilled baby calamari was with peperoni — sweet peppers — rather than peperoncini, the chilli peppers that are the more fashionably familiar accompaniment. The Orsino vari- ant might almost work as a culinary pun, but in no other sense. The bell peppers are too flabby in texture to be partnering the just-not-slimy rubberiness of the squid. The pasta, which even these days might be thought of as a true test of an Italian restaurant, was overcooked — not so much al dente as al false dente. This had been the case on my earlier visit as well. The liver came not pink as requested but still livid and viscous and had to be sent back (though they were nice about it). Working on the principle that the more under- cooked the better (more fashionable, sophisticated etc.) is not always wise. Though I think that might be the principle which also ensured that the new potatoes were disappointingly firm to the bite.
The ice creams were too watery and seemed to indicate that they hadn't started out life as custards, and there's not a gelate- ria in Italy that would approve of that. No more do I. The best I can say about the apple and pine-nut cake is that it was boring.
With a bottle of fizzy water, a quarter- litre of house red and a couple of cups of coffee, our bill for dinner for two came, after a modest tip, to £58.
Orsino, 119 Portland Rd W11; tel: 071-221
Previous page
