Saturday, February 04, 2012
SIMPLICITY must be a complicated thing.
Why else would so many mid-market chefs promise to let ingredients speak for themselves, before spoiling them in needlessly difficult dishes?
Sure, if you’re Heston Blumenthal or a Martijn Kajuiter, a bit of molecular magic can coax gasp-inducing dimensions from the most ordinary ingredients. But they are exceptions. They have talent, resources, customers with deep pockets.
For budget and mid-priced restaurants, convolution shouldn’t be an option. Why waste time and money trashing simple ingredients with kaleidoscopic garnishes and competing ideas? All too often, however, that’s exactly what they do.
Such restaurants could learn a lot from Jamie Oliver. By now, of course, the Naked Chef is more commercial juggernaut, but at heart, his pukka passion remains. Whether cooking for friends or upending school dinners, his sporty approach always favoured simple dishes and lovely jubbly ingredients. And now, he’s applying the logic to a buzzing Italian restaurant chain.
Taking our seats in the Covent Garden branch of Jamie’s Italian, L and I kick off with the "World’s Best Olives on Ice". They arrive in a little metal dish, and are truly huge — the size of a thumb. They are salty, fruity, the colour of limes, and deliver a buttery aftertaste that lingers a couple of seconds after the flesh has been tugged from stone and dispatched down the throat.
Next up nibble-wise is a plate of mini chilli peppers, stuffed with tuna. Dressed with zig-zags of syrupy balsamic and sprigs of watercress, the peppers look like cored tomatoes, and the tuna inside is textured enough to complement — rather than overwhelm — their sweetness.
So far, so spot-on. The interiors are on the money, too. Set on the edge of St Martin’s Courtyard in Covent Garden, this could so easily have been a super-slick, corporatised affair. But there’s huge attention to detail in the room — from the New York deli-style tiles to the enamel plates to the chunky bread-cutting island at the centre of the room, spilling over with appetite-whetting crumbs.
Facing us is a marble meat counter with cured hams hanging overhead. Around us are stacks of fresh vegetables, recessed shelves packed with tins of tomatoes, packets of pasta, bottles of olive oil. Chilli-red chairs brighten up the workmanlike wood of the tables and floors.
For my main course, I order one of the specials — homemade spaghetti in a tomato sauce with lightly fried aubergine, garlic, chilli, basil and crumbly ricotta. The spaghetti arrives coiled up in a little nest, with oily triangles of aubergine slithering throughout. There’s a hot whack of chilli on first bite, but a vigorous stir sorts that out. I tuck serviette into shirt collar, and tuck in.
As well as pastas, the menu features several planks of antipasti, "secondi" courses ranging from a flash-grilled feather steak (£13.35/€16) to South Coast fritto misto (£15.95/€19), and sides include chips, salads, flash-cooked Swiss chard and baked carrots "in the bag".
L, who is coeliac, orders a prawn linguini with gluten-free pasta. The prawns are plentiful, and so is the fennel — which I find overpowering, but she likes; the GF pasta is fresh and perfectly cooked, but tastes only passable. We’re on the clock, so we skip dessert, but there’s a reasonable choice of wines by the glass, and a smattering of Prosecco cocktails — it’s a place you could linger in.
I should note that the service fitted really well too — our waitress was confident, well-able to answer L’s coeliac queries, willing to advise on the dishes, and up for a bit of banter. "There’s the romance," she winked, dropping over a candle at 3pm in broad daylight.
Of course, some diners may be turned off by the commercial forces behind it all, but credit where credit is due, Jamie Oliver (and Gennaro Contaldo, his co-conspirator) have created a chain that feels authentic, prepares fresh pasta every day, and is as comfortable to eat in on a budget of €20 as €100. It sounds simple, but that’s a very complicated trick to pull off.
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