EATING OUT

It could do with more crowds, says Tom – but otherwise this North Kensington Italian is tops

It wasn’t love at first bite. It wasn’t even like. In fact, on my initial visit to Pollini, an Italian restaurant in North Kensington’s newly restored Ladbroke Hall, I hated the place. The room was cold and cavernous, the din cacophonous, with a huge bar plonked in the middle. Meaning the space was awkwardly hewn in two. Tables for any more than four were so huge that sign language was necessary to even attempt conversation, while the menu offered – wait for it – a lasagne that was the chef’s ‘interpretation of his mother’s classic dish’. Mamma bloody mia.

In its defence, though, I did visit during that deranged period of pre-christmas carousing and, thanks to a lunch that stretched on deep into the afternoon, was thoroughly, well, refreshed. So we return, at the start of the New Year, when the festive excess is but a dyspeptic blur in the rear-view mirror, and eyes are bright once more. Things are quiet, as they are everywhere, and the room, which still resembles the entrance hall of some grand old museum, is half empty. Which is a problem, as all that space demands the clatter of knives and forks. At the weekend, though, the place is packed. Service is as slick as it is sweet. And the food, under the command of the eponymous

Emanuele Pollini, is very good indeed. Ingredients are top notch. And left mercifully untouched too – an exceptional yellowtail crudo, with sashimiquality fish sliced so thin that you can see the plate below,

drenched in a golden, grassy olive oil. Amalfi anchovies, possessing the intense depth of the very best, served with cold butter. And some exceptionally sweet Sicilian prosciutto.

A fritto misto is beautifully done, the crisp, greaseless batter clinging lightly to vast, gloriously fresh prawns. They remind me of Southern Italian summers, in the drear depths of West London winter. And six of the buggers too, for £34. Which, for this part of town, is almost a bargain.

Even that ‘interpretation’ of

Pollini’s mother’s lasagne is far better than it sounds – fresh pasta stuffed with bechamel, surrounded by neat piles of serious beef ragù. Along with slivers of fried pasta.

But why bother with the ‘interpretation’? I want the real thing. Anyway, Pollini has some of the best Italian cooking in London. It just needs to fill that room.

Gloriously fresh prawns remind me of Southern Italian summers

About £45 per head. Pollini, 79 Barlby Road, London W10; ladbrokehall.com/restaurant

Tom’s verdict: ‘Pollini has some of the best Italian cooking in London’