Norma

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.