Thus it's a relief to have a double restaurant day, with a lunch meeting at Moro and a dinner meeting at Cipriani. Both well known London restaurants, both unsampled as yet by the Ferrara palate. Finally, something better than rising petrol prices to write about.
Chefs Sam and Sam Clark bring the taste of North Africa to North London
In a head-to-head contest, Moro wins hands down on the taste of the food and the value for money. Cipriani has a slight edge on service and atmosphere, though the clientele was a bit dodgy. I'd happily return to either if someone else paid; only to Moro if on my own account.
Moro's is a well-known story in London. Similarly named married couple Sam and Sam Clark spent years touring around Spain and North Africa in a camper van, throwing themselves into local cuisines and cooking like natives. They came home, combined that with their experience working at a few famous London spots and gave birth to Moro. It's in Exmouth Market, a shabby chic pedestrianised strip about half a mile north of Holborn; a no man's land for tourists, but heaving on weekdays with young and hip city workers.
Their Moorish fusion cuisine offers taste sensations but is not for the delicate palate. I consumed far more garlic and onion than is wise at a business meeting, and did wish I had a toothbrush in my bag for the afternoon. But at the time, every bite was heavenly. I started with broad beans and couscous in a thick sauce of yogurt, cumin, fresh coriander. And lots of garlic. I could have happily had a double portion of that and called it a meal. But a fabulous main course was to follow. Wood roasted sea bass, cooked to a perfection I can never manage at home, served with lentils and one of the most unusual, piquant salads I've ever tasted. New onions, sun dried tomatoes, green tomatoes, black olives and pomegranate seeds in a sharp but not overpowering dressing.
It's rare that I go for famous chef's cookbooks, figuring the restaurant food is far too complicated to attempt at home. My first instinct after wrapping up the meal here was to head to the bookstore and buy the wisdom of the Clarks to try at home. Sadly, I had to get back to the office for a conference call.
My only real criticism was that this is probably not the best venue for a serious business meeting. It's a casual, boisterous environment, jam-packed at lunch and very noisy. We had a lot of serious conversation to pursue and this was perhaps a bit too loud for perfection. As long as your colleagues aren't too stuffy and willing to speak up, then this isn't an insurmountable problem.
Cipriani is less about the food, and more about celebrity. A good indication: they don't have a web site that comes up in their first page of Google hits, but there are three different links to various celebrity sightings at the restaurant. We only saw an odd assortment of brash businessmen and overly dressed, overly trendy women who screamed "new money". It is strangely tacky given its location just off Berkeley Square in the heart of old money Mayfair.
The best thing about the place is the decor. It's a marvelously art deco room, meant to evoke the golden age of the trans-Atlantic steamers. If you're in any doubt, there's actually a porthole near the maitre d's desk with a video of the ocean slipping by. They also get high marks on the service; a virtual swarm of white coated waiters, mostly Italian, is circling constantly to anticipate every need.
The menu is good. Large and authentically Italian. Had I not already had a big lunch, and if I weren't fighting to keep Weight Watchers a success despite all this dining out, I would have started with the pasta with the cuttlefish flavoured with its own ink (a classic Venetian dish you don't see too much outside of Italy) and followed up with some veal. And then indulged in their cream cake covered with a towering meringue. I was very good, however, opting for cod covered with a mound of beautifully cherry tomatoes tossed in olive oil and herbs. And a bowl of fresh berries for dessert. I have to commend their produce. The tomatoes clearly came, recently, from somewhere where they'd naturally ripened under a hot sun. And the berries were sweet enough not to need any sugary enhancements to their natural flavours.
The food was very exactly as it should have been; top quality Italian. But tasting mine, and looking at my colleagues' plates, I saw nothing to justify the £30 entry point on the mains and the starters in the high teens to low 20s. These very steep prices put you in the same range as Locanda Locatelli, my favourite Italian restaurant in London, where Georgio Locatelli reinterprets Italian classics to create inspirational dishes. If I were planning to spend that kind of cash, I'd skip this place and head for Georgio's. Cipriani was pleasant, but no better than I'd expect from any authentic Italian place that presents a broad, traditional menu. Clearly, you're paying for that wonderful decor, fabulous service and the chance that you might be at the table next to Gwyneth Paltrow or Tom Ford. We, on the other hand, were seated near a screaming baby, so the aura of the famous wasn't working for us.
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