La Bella Figura

Exciting times for the fans (officially 0) – this blog has been short listed for a food writing competition run by Waitrose and the Good Food Guide, in which the eventual winner gets to write for the Good Food Guide 2014! I know, we all thought this was just me writing my diary in public and occasionally going for dinner in nice places.

The final takes place in February and involves ‘food based challenges’. Assuming they mean inventive cooking and culinary knowledge rather than ‘how many mini eggs can you fit in your mouth in one go?’ (officially 29), between now and then you can expect lots of recipes as I practice the art of perfection.

Right now though, we’re on our way to Locanda Otteomezzo via a book signing. Last week, courtesy of an invitation from a Pimlico Publishing Powerhouse, we arrived at Waterstones on Kensington High Street and came face to face with Antonio Carluccio and Genaro Contaldo, aka Two Greedy Italians. This was one of my favourite cookery programmes of 2012 (yes, there’s a list and no, Rachel-Khoo-who-stole-my-life is not on it), mainly for the episode about ‘white food’, in which they sat next to an oven in a mountain village all day baking things with butter, cream and cheese.

Carluccio signed my book, which was almost too thrilling, talked about caviar and then told a joke about the mafia and baby Jesus that was so hyperbolically Italian it all became too much. It would work well at this point if I could say that we were all so enthused by the torrid Southern European amore we immediately headed straight for the nearest trattoria, but we didn’t, we went to the pub for a couple of hours and then tried to get into Côte. Sadly thwarted, we followed a memory around the corner to Locanda Otteomezzo, where they appeared to be whipping themselves into a truffle frenzy in a very nicely lit (by which I mean dark avec candles) basement.

Everything was truffled. The bread, the plates, one entire tasting menu. Truffles everywhere. Having drunk Guinness earlier (different story), I was approximately as hungry as one would be after eating a loaf of bread, so I went for the carpaccio with parmesan, rocket and truffle oil. Everyone else had the special of truffled pasta. Now, truffle pasta is one of the best and simplest things in the world (much like one of my sisters) but if you’re going to serve plain pasta with fungus and charge £25 or more for it you really do have to get it right. Everything needs to be fresh, hot and happy. This wasn’t quite there and the whole dish looked sad, tepid and brown. People left bits on their plates, which shouldn’t happen with this kind of food. On a happier note, my carpaccio was delicious and accidentally truffled parmesan is an unexpectedly good thing to eat. (I also note that the reviews online are great, so maybe we ordered the wrong thing. I’m writing this because I don’t want to be abused on Twitter by chefs).

I see from reading my SIGNED BOOK that Carluccio has a recipe for taglierini al tartufo. So next time, I’ll be inviting everyone to mine for a hopefully more satisfying experience.

Locanda Otteomezzo
2-4 Thackeray Street
W8 5ET