My plate of view
Bar Lina, 18, Brewer Street, W1
Is there a purer childlike thrill for an adult than being somewhere after it has officially closed for the day? Not long ago, I found myself knocking on the door of Lina Stores, Brewer Street’s iconic Italian delicatessen, well past my bedtime, practically levitating with excitement.
After confirming our names, we were led past shelves stacked with jarred pulses and chocolates to the staircase for the basement. Down here, there used to be a kitchen where all the fresh pasta was made. Now that there are six Lina restaurants across London, it’s become a bar. Brand new it might be, but it feels as if it’s been beamed in straight from the 1950s: the lighting is lower than low, the bar itself is a devastatingly goodlooking swoosh of burgundy marble and every table is for two.
Negronis are the thing here, with half a dozen variations (including an alcoholfree ‘Nogroni’) showcasing syrups and tinctures made in house. The classic negroni—gin, Campari, Antica Formula, job done—is flawless, right down to the crystal-clear ice cubes (the trick, apparently, is to boil the water first). ‘But this is a restaurant column,’ I hear you mutter—‘where’s the food?’ Wooden boards of cured meats, cheeses and marinated vegetable antipasti assembled in the deli upstairs arrived in our nook, piled high with rosemary-studded focaccia, fruity Puglian olives and plump caperberries. Pesto-swirled stracciatella cheese is paired with intense little Parmesan biscotti; double the fun. Ossobuco arancini, rich with saffron and meat cooked low and slow, are the perfect foil for astringent cocktails—as, if you’re vegetarian, are the fried polenta pieces topped with truffled woodland mushrooms.
You can order a few mouthfuls of food to take the edge off or settle in for a Bacchanalian blowout. Either way, time slows deliciously to a crawl down here: it could be midnight or mid morning up on Brewer Street. But all good things must come to an end—they needed our table back. On the way out, we get talking to one of the chefs, who tells us there are plans to make late-night plates of pasta available to drinkers downstairs: the wheel turns full circle.