Anna's Reviews

I'm sorry that my first review for 2011 has to be a negative one. My last visit to Locanda Locatelli was about a year ago and I thought the food then was clever and inventive. So I was really quite excited about going back. Sadly like the stock market, restaurants can go down as well as up, and this was the case with Locanda. This time the beef carpaccio, which I usually love, seemed tasteless and the stewed neck of lamb was fatty and stringy. I understand that the vogue (culinary or financial I wonder) is to use cheap, unloved cuts but this one truly was a case of mutton dressed up as lamb. To charge £27.50 for it therefore showed that Signor Locatelli has a stronger nerve than most. For me however, I'll be voting with my feet; it's back to Incanto, my local in Harrow on the Hill where the food is nearly as good for half the price. Oh and if the waiters had smiled even once I would have put their service score up a point.

It's 2009 and my personal belief is that good food doesn't need to be delivered with the same gravitas as say in my grandfather's time. Osteria dell'Angolo I feel take themselves a little too seriously and perhaps being round the corner from the Houses of Parliament, that is what is required to keep afloat on politicians' expenses. Being in my 30s however, I felt a slow suffocation by the rustle of pin-striped suits and immaculate starched waiters' aprons. Definitely could do with an injection of ‘messiness’ and warmth along the lines of River Cafe. Food is as good as you would expect by and large; pasta superbly good but the Florentine tripe a little underseasoned and on the oily side.