Alice in Chain Restaurants

Frequent trips back to London serve to sharpen my perspective of the Eternal city less I become inclined to regard its haunting beauty and sanguine chaos as commonplace in every capital.  Before a summer trip back, my general disposition is of one who has just been called up for jury service and dragged off the set of an episode of Jeux sans Frontieres, c 1974.  As I change out of my bikini and begin the hunt for my driving licence, my mood lightens as I start to scribble a mental shopping list in my mind: Fortumn and Mason’s Smoky Earl Grey Tea, Frank Cooper’s Vintage Oxford Orange Marmalade, Marks and Spencer's egg and watercress sandwiches. Clearly I’m all about the food.

I sigh at the prospect of eating pseudo-Italian food in London where the spread of  fake Italian chain restaurants is endemic.  On the plane, I wonder how many new cases will have sprung up in my absence.  Once, a London economist told me that such chain restaurants had indeed improved the quality of the restaurant industry.  Maybe what he meant to say is they have bumped up profitability and encouraged an alarming proportion of the English middle class to try and order  “Broooshetta” (The correct pronunciation of “bruschetta” is “brusketta”).  In reality, these places have very little to do with the "magic of Italy" but as far as marketing works on the English, yesterday’s newspapers would still fly off the shelves today if clearly labelled “Authentic Italian”,  whatever that might mean.  One chain thinks it means offering Piaggio Vespa scooters for sale on the dessert menu, for around £2000 a pop and that's one of the more authentic ones.  In Rome the secret of "Authentic Italian" is seasonal, fresh, simple food.  Cappuccino is drunk until 11 a.m. not upsold to wash down a pizza at 11 p.m. Pesto is served with fresh trofie, not slapped across the pert breast of a bewildered chicken. And not even a first generation Roman could identify a garlic dough ball even if Roma’s star striker Francesco Totti possessed the artistry required to score a goal with one.

During my recent trip back to London, the air was buzzing with compliments for the latest “Authentic Italian" chain restaurant to open.  The latest strain of this epidemic is called “Fifteen” and chief mutant in the kitchen is known to all in Blighty as Jamie Oliver, a.k.a. “The Naked Chef” - why "naked" I don’t know but if the Romans saw his addition of double cream and thyme to his carbonara recipe they would surely strip him naked and dump him by the Tiber.  That said, his menus look creative and his policy of employing only young chefs and installing his passion for food into them is inspiring. For this reason alone I will make a point of visiting one next time I'm back; I'm curious to see the dimensions of the "GIANT green olives from Puglia" on offer.  Maybe I'll even slay a few with a chilled glass of prosecco in the coming days as I'm off to Salento in Puglia tomorrow. In the meantime, my advice to the Naked Chef:  Put your clothes back on and keep it simple!


Photo credit: Keeping the bill simple by Josie Ochej

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Beware the Ides of Wholemeal Carbonara

There’s no greater way to strike terror into a Roman’s heart than by declaring your intention to rustle him up a little something in the kitchen, without using a recipe. No menu in a restaurant means homemade delights but no recipe in the kitchen means red alert. As part of my transition from precise, reliable Briton to abstract Roman, I’m now embracing their ideology that anything official is in fact a suggestion; opening times, speed limits, road markings, invoices, terms of use, consumer rights, but apparently a recipe is holier than a scripture, carved into Dolomite marble. It is timeless, exempt from evolution and must be followed to the letter.  To a Roman, no recipe means it doesn’t exist and it never will.

 For one such as myself, whose cooking style is more suited to cauldron than saucepan, the idea of zero creativity in the kitchen is inconceivable but when I glimpsed the panic in my Roman victim’s eyes (nickname “Gastro-gnome”) as I announced my intention to experiment with Carbonara, I decided to search on-line for a  hasty compromise. Here I found Luigi, traditional Roman chef at Ristorante Giancarlone ,  a small restaurant not far from my apartment. I watched a video of him effortlessly conjuring up the mythical dish while warning kitchen clowns like myself, not to stray from the Carbonara recipe.(Watch How To Make a Real Carbonara with Luigi with English subtitles) His nettled tone communicates that he’s said it a thousand times and he's saying it again for the slow student at the back of the class.  The quantity of pasta is precise, the maturity of cheese is non-negotiable and don’t even think about separating the eggs! 

I watched and studied Luigi's performance, thinking his boss Giancarlone (Big John Charles)  would probably take a contract out on England’s most successful TV chef (Delia Smith) if he saw her recipe. I considered cycling round to see him for more tips, but in the end I rationalized: how difficult could it really be?  My final result had a certain fascination of its own: a type of scrambled egg and chopped bacon spaghetti dish which Gastro-gnome will forever refer to as my “Nuclear Carbonara” I have to admit, James Taylor and Jackson Browne would have scheduled another No Nukes rally in Battery Park had they seen it. A postmortem revealed Luigi hadn’t been precise enough about the type of spaghetti required. I had used wholemeal which had arrogantly disassociated itself from the sauce. The sauce had then taken on an unsavoury life of its own, having been snubbed by the pasta. Gastro-gnome chastised me. Really! Anyone would have thought I’d tried to smuggle in some cream!

The next of my restaurant recommendations knows how to make a great Roman carbonara. Maccheroni, near the Pantheon makes delicious Roman fare with side dishes which are more imaginative than most. I’m always bored by Roman mixed salads but here they are a little more creative and big enough to share. Maccheroni is versatile, sophisticated and relaxed. Go early and have an aperitivo in the beautiful Piazza delle Coppelle  in which it’s situated. If you want to avoid making “Nuclear Carbonara”, ask for a seat with a view of the kitchen. It’s  a feature of the restaurant . You can watch a great culinary performance while you eat. Just don't forget to silently applaud or wave a breadstick at the end.

Maccheroni. Open every day. Recommend reserving a table. Great for daft vegetarians like myself. Price: mid-range. 10 mins walk from Via del Corso. No metro. 

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