Mezzogiorno is a very serious, golden Italian restaurant inside the Corinthia London Hotel on Northumberland Avenue. Restaurants are increasingly gold these days, as if for a crocodile of Scrooge McDucks trooping through the wreckage of liberalism looking for money, nuts and guns. It follows the trajectory of my beloved Raffles at the OWO [Old War Office] round the corner. What was once a Ministry of Defence building – though formerly a hotel – is now a (quite good) pizza joint. When the time comes, I hope the drones know.
Ignore the lie that gold restaurants serve tiny portions for tiny people. These are vast
Mezzogiorno is by the gifted Francesco Mazzei, previously of Sartoria in Savile Row. Here, because this is an age in denial about hierarchy– ha! – the front of Mezzogiorno is fitted out as an idealised Calabrianfarm kitchen, or shop. Inevitably I think of the Hampstead farmers’ market, which should be called They Saw You Coming. There is a long open kitchen, the inevitable chef’s table for those who want to sit in what is essentially a passageway and name themselves VIPs, and a cabinet containing pasta so pristine it looks like Lego.
Beyond this is the real Mezzogiorno: the dining room. I name it understated compared only to the neighbouring bar, which is, in the spirit of this age, a huge diamond selling mocktails; compared to anything else it is not. The room is huge, the walls are pale, the floors are wood; there are mirrors, of course, for the Instagram class, who are overrepresented here – as the Quakerati are underrepresented – and linen screens. It’s the Dunhill aesthetic at its tinny heart: a universe in a rich man’s pocket. The only odd note is the light fittings, which are blackened and obscure.
In a city increasingly given to Italian and American food – gangsterism is fashionable, though we call it oligarchy now – this is something special: dense, spiced cuisine leaning to seafood, which is, for the most part, perfect. Ignore the lie that gold restaurants serve tiny portions for tiny people. These are vast. The bread is served with Francesco’s mother’s olive oil, which is framed as a question by a waitress wearing rustic wear, though possibly by Gucci: do you want Francesco’s mother’s olive oil? Yes, we say, wondering if anyone says no.
Perhaps I should not have ordered antipasti – essentially a picnic – but I am a Jew, and I am increasingly drawn to food designed for running away. Passover matzah is the heavily caveated ideal of this genre but – and this is ever the scream of the Diaspora Jew – Francesco Mazzei’s antipasti is better. By the time we have eaten coarse salami from Naples (£9), capocollo (£6) and bruschetta al pomodoro (£6, so less than Pret) we are already full, but we had a Yorkshire pecorino (£12) on the side. Does anyone reach four courses here?
They can try. The pasta is glorious. Ricotta and burrata-filled tortelli with butter and sage (£19) is beautiful to look at, and touch. Some will think of pillows, others silk, but we are definitely in soft furnishings. Carbonara with short rigatoni and guanciale (£19) is fabulous, and as porky as I could dream.
We don’t have space for more. And yet when the waitress comes with a communal dish of tiramisu – they do this at Blacklock, and I love it – and hurls a vast portion on my plate (£12) in a motion that feels vaguely like a rugby try, I collapse to it. The philosophers are clear. In days of war, we need trifles.
Mezzogiorno, Northumberland Ave, London WC2; tel: 020 7930 8181.
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