You could almost be in Italy

This review was published in August 2002

People talk a lot of guff about authenticity. Take the real foodies who won't countenance a restaurant of whatever ethnic bent unless they can trace the genesis of each dish back to the first time it was served in the primeval yurt.

These are the people who loftily challenge the use of lemongrass in French restaurants and who sneer at chicken tikka masala (a delicious dish, if properly done) as it's an illegitimate offspring born to appease a British palate. These people should head straight for Giardinetto.

Chef and owner Maurizio Vilona hails from Liguria, home of pesto and also my mamma, so it's the food of my youth. His menu is a hymn to his heritage. It promises farinata, the sort we used to buy from the marble-tiled shop in La Spezia that sold this wobbly and strangely delicious chickpea pancake by the square; there's pasta e fagioli (pasta with creamy canellini beans); and focaccina, real salty, chewy, oily, mini-foccacia, not the spongy, overherbed atrocities we're used to. Or so we had hoped.

The look of the place was encouraging. Boy, is it Italian, not in that designer, sharp-edged Milanese way, but in an authentic, family-run way (papa cooks, and daughter and son - who appears to be aged about 14 - serve). The floor is crazy-paving mosaic; the furniture has a slightly job-lot look about it; dark wood and etched glass have been used in a determinedly non-Wallpaper* way; perhaps in reference to the name (Giardinetto means 'little garden') sad clumps of flowers drape over a ceiling-height dado rail. We ain't talking glossy.

Everything we ate was punctiliously true to its roots. But - and here's the downside - that's not to say all of it was particularly enjoyable. This is the bit that always gets the foodie bores aerated. Enjoyable versus authentic? Hmmm. Tough call.

My ravioli of peas in a butter and saffron sauce was splendid: toothsome home-made pasta with a subtle filling dressed simply in saffron-scented butter. But tongue served with mostarda di frutta (candied fruit bottled with mustard) and salsa verde had been mugged by its accompaniments. Gnocchi al pesto were perfect, brilliantly green, vivid with grassy basil taste, the dumplings feather light.

But sadly, the evening we ate, the already succinct menu had been further truncated. No focaccina, none of the longed-for farinata; main courses had been deleted because Maurizio wasn't happy with the quality of the ingredients (an admirable display of dedication, I'm sure).

My date, unable to choose, instructed daughter-ofthehouse to bring what she would have. This was rabbit with liver and onions. He took one taste and refused to eat any more, declaring it 'pointless'. I tried it: it was bland, bland, bland - its greige sauce thick with what appeared to be potato. No-one was questioning its execution: it simply didn't taste very nice.

The same applied to a soupy stew of fish and beans. A collection of meat - fillet, chicken breast, Italian sausage - was to be cooked on a viciously hot slab of stone and eaten with various sauces. All very fine, but in reality no more interesting than a Mongolian Barbecue. The popularity of this choice meant we left smelling like hamburgers. We paid about £45 a head, including wine from the all-Italian list.

The people are lovely at Giardinetto and there's no denying the passion of all concerned. The home-made pasta dishes are terrific, even if the others are less so. But without a doubt it was pretty authentic.

Giardinetto
69 Charlotte Street, W1