Carbs are back. Lovely, lovely carbs. Some say they never went away, but then they weren’t the ones distracted by cauliflower rice and beetroot brownies, or mussels balanced on a single braised leek.
Hold on a minute. That last dish was at the Clove Club in London, currently standing at No 26 in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, and it’s those same chaps now bringing us pasta and choux and biscuits and ice-cream cones. Whatever happened to spartan pleasures?
Misery unconfined, probably. A year in which many of us probably thought “Damn it, we’re going to hell in a handcart, so who cares about carrying an extra few kilos?” has perhaps been the inspiration for more than one restaurant offering comforting carbohydrates.
For the chef-owner Isaac McHale, the comfort is in pasta. The man himself, I hope he won’t mind me saying, looks as if he eats pasta. He looks as if he’d rather eat glass than embrace clean eating. He’s Scottish and jolly and ferociously talented. Such is his attachment to the Clove Club, a real critics’ darling, the surprise was that he was working on a second restaurant at all, not that he read the nation’s mood so well.
His spin-off, Luca, couldn’t be more on the money. Here are “British seasonal ingredients through an Italian lens” — for which read pasta with grouse, with potatoes, with beef, with Morecambe Bay shrimps.
Advertisement
In the bar, the snacks are chips and scotch eggs, gone all Italian. So, parmesan fries are not potatoes: they’re light-as-a-feather choux, deep-fried and gussied up with cheese, liberally dredged with paprika. The “eggs” are meaty olives wrapped in rabbit sausage, also deep-fried.
But we’re not in the bar. Luca reveals itself slowly, cleverly. A British racing-green frontage (which had been dark grey for the location’s previous incarnation, a Portuguese joint called Portal) with unbleached linen drapes suggests something homely and classic. The first room, the bar, has a handful of booths and a long counter with seats. A miniature kitchen at the back of the bar creates those snacks. If you went no further, you’d be doing just fine.
“The crudo — sea robin — is that lovable, ugly old rascal gurnard, rebranded to make us order it
Dogleg around the desk, along a corridor in which Portal unwisely put seating, and you’re in a nicely spaced dining room occupied by eight tables, with an opening into the kitchen. It’s not quite large enough to see everything, but on the day I visit, McHale is on the pass — a settling-in, one assumes, before he returns to the Clove Club, leaving the new head chef, Robert Chambers, in charge.
But then, up a couple of steps and through a bare-bricked half wall, there’s another, larger dining room. I’d leave this cavernous, glassy space to the Clerkenwell architect set if I were you — although, in a corner, the “pasta room” is rather more cosy, resembling an Italian kitchen with a rustic table and pottery on shelves. If Jamie Oliver ran Luca, there’d be a sign on the door saying “This is where the magic happens”. It’s actually where, once each day’s pasta is rolled, the private dining happens.
That’s the space to ask for if you can ever book in, rather than the other side room — this is tricked out like an indoor garden, complete with a pretty skylight, but inexplicably has those naff, cumbersome, high-backed metal chairs you’d expect to see on Amanda Holden’s patio.
Advertisement
I mention booking because Luca, like the Clove Club, is hotter than July. Despite opening at short notice, once word was out the booking system clogged up. Luca also uses Tock, a rather draconian prepay service, but at least here you don’t have to part with any money before you eat — for now.
So I squeeze in a late lunch with a most discerning companion but — oh woe — she announces on arrival that she’s “not that hungry”. And although she rallies after tasting bread with a silky, grassy Capezzana olive oil poured from a dinky blue pot, it’s up to me to hoover up the heartier of the dishes — those bar snacks, some raw fish, a cannelloni of calf’s head ragu, a few forkfuls of bonus pasta, then more beef. Ah well, it’s a tough job ...
I’ve heard others say they were left a bit cold by the spaghettini, but I love it — there’s a sandy, spicy finish to the sauce, all in a murky, browny-orange puddle on the plate. But if you’re expecting actual visible shrimps with it, you’ll be disappointed. This is a dish created from a puréed potted variety from a Lancashire producer, because using fresh British ingredients would mean trying to source raw shrimps, which just don’t exist (they’re cooked at sea).
McHale tells me he does use by-catch too, although Luca wears its sustainability beliefs lightly. It’s not explained that the crudo — sea robin — is that lovable, ugly old rascal gurnard, renamed and rebranded to make us order it (see also pilchards and Cornish sardines).
I’m not sure I would have ordered the beef if I’d spotted kale juice in the supporting cast, but its glossy good looks are tastier than those green goddesses who inhale the stuff — so 2015. And, phew, the salsify is fried.
Advertisement
Luca’s front-of-house confidence is almost entirely justified (please don’t do that hiding-the-wine-bottle thing, though; and please, the waiters need not make physical contact — in this case a frequent back pat — with the diners to make a connection), and much of the menu is accomplished.
But I wish they’d had the balls to make it just pasta and snacks, and to leave the culinary artistry down the road in Shoreditch. It’s the carbs that bewitch — and the delicious little nubbins and nuggets you get to eat in the bar (the fries do resemble savoury churros more than anything, but the staff tell me McHale won’t have the term uttered).
And if you want a dish that sums it all up, how about Luca’s delicious, comforting-carb, mint choc chip ice cream cone. It looks like a child’s dropped Cornetto: upside down and a bit messy. Very 2016.
FROM THE MENU
Luca
88 St John Street, London EC1M 4EH
020 3859 3000, luca.restaurant.
Mon-Sat: noon-2.30pm, 5pm-midnight; Sun: noon-3pm
Three of the best modern Italian restaurants
Advertisement
Villaggio Cucina, Southport
In the heart of Birkdale, this inviting trattoria is buzzy from first thing with eggs florentine to late-night digestifs. All the classics and a fine line in puddings.
31 Liverpool Road, Southport PR8 4AG; 01704 564564, villaggiocucina.co.uk
Sebastian’s Italian, Windsor
A popular little place tucked off the main drag, specialising in authentic ragu and ravioli, as well as pizza from the wood-fired oven. Try one of the whopping calzones.
Unit 3, 2 Goswell Hill, Windsor SL4 1RH; 01753 851418, sebastiansitalian.com
Vero Moderno, Salford
The fettuccine alle parmense is “creamed at your table in a whole parmesan wheel” — little wonder this recent launch has quickly earned a reputation as a serious Italian.
Vimto Gardens, Chapel Street, Salford, Manchester M3 5JF; 0161 637 1160, veromoderno.co.uk