Andy's reviews
Review of Zafferano
20 Oct 07, 16:48
Best Italian in London 
I have been coming here on a monthly basis since I discovered it, which means I have eaten here well over 100 times. Andy Needham has taken over from Giorgio Locatelli as chef but this has not affected the terrific seasonal Italian cooking. Ingredients are dazzling, many flown in from Italy three times a week.
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Review of Carluccios
20 Oct 07, 16:09
Dismal food 
First and last visit. Soggy bruschetta with tasteless tomatoes was actually better than my wife's awful tuna fishcake, straight from a microwave and barely tasting of tuna (0/10). Mushroom lasagne was tolerable, but my wife's penne pasta was hard and chewy, while little balls of fried spinach were rock-hard (0/10). Chocolate ice cream was fine (1/10), though Stella’s tiramisu was the sort of thing you’d find out of a packet (0/10). Coffee was decent (2/10). Service was pleasant, and it was nice to sit out on this lovely summer’s night, but this food is well below the standard of something you could buy from the nearby Marks & Spencer. This was pretty dire food, yet the place was busy just weeks after opening. Amazing what a TV chef’s name can do, totally blinding people to the actual taste. The best dish was a bowl of decent olives.
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Review of Vino Rosso
19 Oct 07, 18:16
Over-ambitious and over-priced
A new Italian restaurant in Chiswick. It is a few doors from La Trompette and is very nicely decorated, with wooden floors and insets in the walls with various bottles of wine, along with good lighting. The dining room is fairly small, with maybe 30 or so covers, though that was hardly a problem tonight, as there were only four other diners this evening (admittedly a quiet Monday in January). A complimentary Bellini arrives at the beginning, which is a pleasant touch.
The menu is ambitiously priced, with three courses at £29.50 a fraction more than Pearl in Holborn, for example (lunch menu is £17.50 for two courses). Chef Christian Gardin is from a place in Kingston I have never heard of, and the owner is an Italian businessman.
Bread is warm, a small white roll, a slice of brown bread and a saffron roll that did indeed have the metallic taste of saffron. However the texture of the breads was not very good, the white being the best (1/10). I started with scallops, seared and served on a bed of celeriac puree, with a “dressing” of sun-dried tomatoes. The scallops were small and overcooked, and for some reason they were cooked with the coral attached. Given that scallop coral needs a different cooking time to the main scallop this is an odd thing to do.
The celeriac puree tasted of celeriac but was heavy rather than light as you would hope. Moreover sun-dried tomatoes are one of those things that I had hoped, like kiwi fruit, had disappeared from kitchens these days (0/10).
My wife had pumpkin soup with gorgonzola cheese profiteroles. The wisdom of putting choux pastry in soup is debatable at best, but the soup itself was insipid and thin (0/10). I next had large egg pasta ribbons with wild boar ragu and juniper berries. The pasta itself was freshly made and actually had quite good texture (3/10 for the pasta itself) but the ragu was not cooked for long enough and was a little chewy when it should have been melting (1/10 for the dish).
Gnocchi was edible but not great, stuffed with artichokes and with a somewhat odd pairing of white wine and ginger sauce (round up). My final course was sea bass, but this consisted of three tiny rolls of overcooked fish wrapped around an overcooked prawn, all around a central mound of courgettes which had been cut as “spaghetti”. This presentation was quite fancy and Ok in itself but the seafood was overcooked (0/10).
Halibut was served as a fillet with an accompaniment of mashed potato, artichoke and black olive, which carelessly had an olive stone lurking in it. The halibut was overcooked and dried out, the artichoke itself tolerable (0/10). It should be said that portions were really small, unusual these days, and after three courses and bread I was by no means full.
All in all a disappointment, and priced at a level that I think will cause it to struggle in the area. It is quite ambitious cooking without taking care of the basics. Service was fine. The wine list is entirely Italian and although it lacks prestigious growers was adequate. One nice touch is Moscato d’asti by the glass for dessert.
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