The London Italian evolves with fresh flair
RESTAURANT OF THE WEEK SORELLA
SIXTEEN years ago Robin Gill from Dublin, working at the time for Marco Pierre White in the kitchens of the three Michelin-starred Oak Room, decided that he’d like to go to Italy, learn Italian and also pursue a more unassuming style of cooking. Familyrun trattorie were approached but they were resistant to the idea of taking in an outsider chef and the job he landed was at the two-star Michelin Don Alfonso 1890 in the village of Sant’Agata on the Amalfi coast.
What opened his eyes wide there was the obsession with seasonality in ingredients and the absolute importance of prime produce, the fact that the restaurant had its own farm, suppliers, beehives. A move to work at Raymond Blanc’s Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire meant a transition to a business with similar ideals but it was time spent later on in Scandinavia that set the style for the sort of laid-back restaurant in which he feels happy and at home. A restaurant such as The Dairy that he and his wife Sarah opened in Clapham in the spring of 2013.
Sorella (previously Gill’s Clapham restaurant, The Manor) means “sister” in Italian and here the palpable sense of being part of a family. “Everyone likes Italian restaurants”, I hear a customer remark as we weave through crowded tables on a Tuesday evening soon after the opening. That is true but it’s also the case that so many are mediocre, dishing up wearisome clichés in content and peppermill-twirling service.
Upstate New Yorker Ruth Rogers and the late Surrey-bred Rose Gray broke the mould 30 years ago in opening The River Café and it is the diaspora from there that now usually springs to mind when I want Italian: Tim Siadatan (via Jamie Oliver) and Jordan Frieda at Trullo and Padella, Stevie Parle at Palatino and Pastaio, Sam Clark at Moro, Jacob Kennedy (in turn via Moro) at Bocca di Lupo.
When you think about Aussie David Thompson being the linchpin behind British chefs currently cooking thrilling Thai food in London, it is as if the notion of the nationality of a cuisine is evanescing.
Gill has described Sorella as “Italianfocused — all that we love about the Italian attitude to cooking and eating”. My chum at lunchtime noting The Dairy-like emphasis on curing, fermenting, bottling, pickling and potatoes calls it “Irtalian”.
The menu adheres to the conventional Italian four-course structure but more compellingly the authentic Italian passion for pristine produce that is shared by head chef Dean Parker instrumental in agriculture and beekeeping in the restaurants’ investment in a Sussex farm. Fish is bought from Chris Bean’s Kernow Sashimi in Cornwall,
The Post (seen at Curzon Victoria) has particular resonance for an old journo...who afterwards is brought where immediacy of the dayboat catch can be inferred from the name.
You may as well have all three cicchetti to go with a Sorella Americano constructed with the wonder that is homemade vermouth. I’m going to have a try. Making vermouth at home, that is. Sicilian Nocellara olives fried in feisty crumbs contrast with a smooth cod brandade sandwiched between wafers of crisp potato and juicy truffly arancini unusually have shrugged off any association with or folk memory of leftover rice.
Finely sliced black pepper coppa made in-house is a thing of beauty to look at, ruffle up, lay on the semolina sourdough and eat. Jersey milk lends ricotta a satin finish denied other whey cheeses and the combination visually as well as in terms of flavour with black olives and golden Parmesan is regal. I don’t enquire as to the derivation of “Willy’s” mackerel crudo but I can offer you sashimi with salsa verde as a description.
Apparently, an Italian customer took exception to the presence of fennel in crab linguine. I also thought it unwelcome and, come to that, the sauce too lemony but tagliatelle with pork and nduja ragù at the second meal was everything you want from a bowl of pasta including comfort and joy.
Plainness in presentation is one of the appropriate virtues in slices of rosy rare Yorkshire venison served with a scarf of darkest green cavolo nero. Jerusalem artichokes sculpted into curvy wafers atop a little venison stew are presented separately. Crispy potatoes, a side dish at £4, seems like a tribute act to Shaun Searley’s confit potatoes at Quality Chop House. Maybe they are. Shaun has cooked, I do believe, at Bloodshot Supper Club for chefs still raring to go at 1am that takes place from time to time at The Dairy.
The desserts we try of hay panna cotta served with poached quince, whipped cream and crumbled crunchie and malted barley affogato and vodka milk most definitely display the Gill typeface. Ice cream made with Pump Street Bakery chocolate and fennel is possibly more characteristically Italian if you can be bothered to dwell on nationality. If so, an all-Italian wine list is there to help — and homemade limoncello to finish.
@Fay_Maschler