Not besotted with Ottoemezzo

Otto e Mezzo is Italian for 8 1/2 and also the title of a film made in 1963 which tends to turn up in those 100 Best Ever lists.

LOCANDA OTTOEMEZZO, the restaurant, pays homage with logo, books and photographs to its director Federico Fellini and to actors Giulietta Masina (whom he married) and Marcello Mastroianni, star of Fellini's La Dolce Vita. That fact, plus a highly enthusiastic recommendation from a colleague, made me ready to consider the new offshoot of a Kensington delicatessen, located behind the offices of the Evening Standard, irresistible.

The short menu, written with no concessions to a non-reader of Italian menu language, instilled confidence and suggested authenticity of product.

"Maybe we chose badly" is a feeble summary of a place, but I did want to like the food more at this lively establishment distributed over ground and basement floors in various ruggedly furnished intimate spaces with its enthusiastic staff and its admirable cinematic inspiration.

Mussel-and-clam soup had a robust broth which would have been more alluring with the pieces of unpeeled tomatoes strained out. The choice of gnocchi with a duck ragu had me anticipating a meaty sauce, a sort of duck-based Bolognese, not a tomato sauce in which a few shards of duck were dotted about.

Tagliata di Buccleuch, presumably a reference to the provenance of the steak, was cooked rare as requested and served sliced, as the name implies, with an assortment of grilled vegetables. It was a rather dull assembly. Spadellata di agnello alla cacciatora turned out to be small, dry lumps of lamb with a slightly different array of grilled vegetables and scant evidence of the "hunter's style" of preparation which usually means a sauce based on mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, herbs and wine.

The desirable simplicity of Italian main courses only works if the quality of the main ingredients sings. And at £17.50 and £16.50 you would expect them to. We passed on desserts, which were legitimately low-key, described, like the pasta, as made in-house. The wine list has some interesting Italian bottles.

Ottoemezzo is a potentially vibrant addition to a staid residential area. It was certainly doing roaring business only a few weeks after opening. It is not yet, however, exactly irresistible.