EATING OUT

La Follia, near Petersfield, does ingenious takes on Italian classics. For Tom it’s amore at first bite

There’s an essential simplicity to La Follia, a small Italian café in South Harting, West Sussex. Not so much the room, which is cluttered in the best possible way, a sort of higgledy-piggledy rustic romance, with hanging baskets, fairy lights, antique dressers and vintage kitchen kit. All of which are for sale. No, the simplicity lies in the food, where the emphasis is on good ingredients, simply served.

You won’t find bowls of pasta, veal saltimbocca or tagliata, just a short, sweet menu of cicchetti (taking their inspiration from all over Italy, rather than just Venice), various sandwiches and toasties, as well as dolci, or sweet things, all homemade save the cornetti, which are imported from Milan. The kitchen is tiny and open, but chef Lucy Green works wonders from such a limited space. There are slices of good soppressata – spicy Calabrian salami – drizzled with honey, olive oil and slivers of pecorino; a ball of burrata, cool and oozingly lactic, with a whisper of chilli and shards of preserved lemon. And a tin of Sicilian anchovies, sweetly intense, which comes with cool butter and hunks of fresh bread. Bruschetta is topped with cacio e pepe beans, an

Tiramisu is exceptional: light and rich and lovely

inspired take on the Roman pasta classic – all soft, creamy allure.

And all excellent, too, but it’s the sandwiches that really shine. Focaccia is baked just down the road, by Anna O’kelly, a friend of owner Mariana Newton, who also runs front of house. Dear god, it’s good: soft, spongy, drenched in olive oil and scattered with sea salt. The first,

a mighty mouthful, is packed with mortadella and burrata, the bread smeared with pistachio pesto and a lusty aïoli. While the toasted version is crammed with prosciutto and oozes mozzarella. They are, in the words of the late, great Michael Winner, historic. Vast, too, easily enough for a serious lunch.

There’s an exceptional homemade tiramisu, light and rich and lovely, and proper coffee, too. Prices are eminently reasonable, service is as sweet as it is slick, and

there’s an abundant generosity that suffuses the whole room with a warm glow.

But I’m not, as you may imagine, alone in my love. The locals know a good thing when they taste it, and La Follia is perennially packed. Book early, or prepare to wait.

About £22 per head. La Follia, 2 Newts Folly, The Square, South Harting; lafollia.co.uk

La Follia is cluttered in the best possible ‘higgeldy-piggeldy rustic’ way