Norma

First time here for a catch up with an old client.

Arrived for lunch 5 minutes late but luckily my guest was comfortable enough to have ordered a cocktail for himself. He was persuaded to surrender his requested G&T for their cocktail of prosecco and bergamot... it slipped down well enough.

The interior is bright and good for a lunch meeting, though mainly banquettes and very small tables for two. Not sure it has the cosy feel one might want for a dinner date. We had three starters of the suggested snacks, raw and antipasti being smoked anchovies, smoked cods roe and sea bream.

The smoked anchovy consisted of two small fillets divided into four, for the princely sum of £9.00  The waiter looked alost embarassed at our rather surprised faces on delivery of such a tiny morsel. The cods roe was the right combination of salty and smooth and enough for both to  enjoy more than a mouthful each. The sea bream came on a 15cm dish in diameter (at most) and contained relatively fresh sea bream in a dressing with pomegranites and bottarga. Good but no wow factor. 

We followed with main course portions of their pappardelle with beef cheeks, pecorino and truffle. Absolutely superb and a winner, just a pity the main course portions resemble a starter in most similar establishments.

A bottle of Grillo from Sicily and a glass of tuscan red enhanced our very good lunch. The bill arrived with the startling revelation that the prosecco cocktail commanded a £16.50 tariff which with service totalled £18.50

I'm not a prosecco specialist, but do know that it takes some bravery to throw that on the bill without forewarning. 

I wish I could say an enjoyable lunch, because the food is good and the service not bad if rather over the top. Sadly, it felt like daylight robbery and the preserve of lost tourists wandering the area having heard Charlotte St is a good for a shot at local London, when in fact it is typical of how to get fleeced in London. Never to be repeated 

Ask most people to come up with expressions they typically associate with Italy and you might find ‘good food’ and ‘chaotic organisation’ mentioned. It would, however, be relatively rare to see both used in the same sentence. As far as Norma – a new Italian venture is Fitzrovia is concerned – where it excelled in food, it failed in service. Maybe the team was having a bad day, but in a dining district as competitive as Fitzrovia, our experience does not auger well for the restaurant’s longevity. On paper and indeed at first glance, everything seems promising. The venture is headed by a seasoned team (ex-Salt Yard and Jason Atherton), they have an interesting angle (emphasising Sicilian cooking and taking in north African influences) and the venue was decorated beautifully (we loved the Moorish tiling). The menu also sounds promising, offering five sections from snacks to mains, each with around five items. This though was where our problems began. There were five in our dining group and five antipasti from which to choose. Let’s go for one of each – a logical decision – but our server had omitted to tell us when he brought the menus that one of the dishes was not available. We asked instead for a red prawn option from the raw bar. Our server did helpfully mention that the dish only contained four prawns but that he would ask the kitchen to place five on our plate. How many turned up? You’ve guessed it – just four. That said, each option that did arrive smashed it. My favourite was a beautifully paired roasted pumpkin, burrata, chicory and fig salad, but pan-fried artichokes and smoked cod’s roe both excelled too. The pattern was repeated with the mains although the highs achieved with the starters were not quite reached and the service experience proved markedly worse. Rule 101 of restaurants is to bring all the dishes at the same time unless you’ve quite explicitly explained why this might not be the case. Three of our group’s arrived in one batch, another five minutes later and then the final one after the remainder of us had already finished. And they forgot the sides. What we ate both looked and tasted good (my ragu of pork, anchovy, and fresh mint packed a hearty earthiness) but as has been said in many other reviews, bad service has to trump good food every time – at least in terms of what will be our prevailing memory. The restaurant did acknowledge the error of its ways, giving us not only our mains free of charge, but also a complementary bottle of wine. To add insult to injury though, one of the venue’s mid-priced wines was also mysteriously unavailable, despite there being no prior warning of this. Norma’s ship may have already sailed. I will not be looking to reboard.