L'Anima - Italian Cooking with Soul

By Marina Benjamin

Name: L’Anima

Where: 1 Snowden Street, London, EC2A 2DQ - www.lanima.co.uk

Cost: Starters cost £14-£26. Primi are £13-£26 and secondi are £16 to £38. Desserts are £7-£13.50. A meal for two from the à la carte menu with wine is roughly £150.

About: When Californian property developer and first-time restaurateur Peter Marano opened L’Anima in 2009, the City was in the depths of recession, and Marano joked that in lieu of bankers wining and dining on their bonuses, insolvency specialists would eat there. What he didn’t count on was that other professionals living and working on the Shoreditch-City border, where L’Anima occupies an out-of-the-way nook, would flock to the place. They were lured by tales of excellent southern Italian food, all of it finely wrought but without losing any of its ‘soul’ (‘l’Anima’ is Italian for soul). Since then L’Anima has gone from strength to strength, now with Sardinian chef Lello Favuzzi heading up the kitchen, mixing ingredients and flavours from Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria and Puglia, and, if he’s in the mood, adding a Moorish twist.

The vibe at L’Anima is white: white floors, white walls, white tables, white chairs. And yet somehow it is not in the least clinical. L’Anima may look austere, but its feel is distinctly welcoming – like Warren Beaty’s paradise in the movie Heaven’s Gate. There’s warm lighting, vast windows, a moody, mirrored bar and friendly, informal staff: sitting in L’Anima you feel uplifted rather than cleansed. And the transport begins when you sample the bone dry Aneri house Prosecco (£9 per glass), accompanied by a homely bread basket and succulent green olives from Puglia.

What We Had: We sampled seven dishes from Chef Lello’s then new autumn menu, many of them light and maritime – as if still clinging to the last days of summer. But to kick off we tried a winter warmer: two beetroot tortelli, huddled in the middle of a vast plate, and twisted up with small cuts of yellow turnip, a few leaves of wilted spinach and fried sage. The dish was almost too beautiful to eat, but the tasting was as good as the looking. Inside the pillowy soft pasta parcels was a smoky burrata filling perfectly set off by a balsamic reduction. To cut the richness, we had a glass of crisp 2014 Vermentino from Isola dei Nuraghi (£6.20).

A medley of fish dishes followed. Grilled octopus with smoked aubergine purée, and crumbled ricotta mustia (£16.50) was paired with a Terre Nobili made from the Greco grape (£10.50). This had a strong scent of sherry on the nose and was robust enough to stand up to the earthy notes of the dish.

A sublime plate, in which a couple of melt-in-the-mouth Mazara prawns, grapefruit and burnt leek, accompanied a generous dollop of creamy stracciatella (£15.00), was paired with a buttery, apple-scented chardonnay from Puglia, called Pietrabianca (£13.50). In other hands this dish might have easily not worked. Add watercress oil and smoky grated Sardinian bottarga, and you’ve got a formidable number of ingredients in play. But it is a testimony to Lello’s talent that it achieved harmony and balance.

The final ‘starter’ was a dish of Malloredus (a traditional Sardinian pasta dish) and blue lobster in a delicate shellfish broth, dotted with pointy, seared florets of Romanesco cauliflower (£17.50). Malloreddus is more like gnocci than pasta, and its black colour derives from the ‘burnt flour’ that is left after the rest of the wheat has been used up. After the big flavours of the tortelli and octopus, this was a delicate and homely offering. It tasted of the sea. With it, we drank a pleasantly floral Bardolino rosé from the Veneto (£8.50).

The meat offering was a slow-cooked piece of pig cheek coated in a jus that had been reduced down to rich, glossy perfection to deliver a deep, meaty kick (£21.50). The yin and yang of the dish was achieved with celeriac purée and a tasty smear of sweet Mirto reduction (a Sardinian liqueur ). It was properly autumnal and hearty. The red wine that Sommelier Gian Marco chose to accompany the pork was complex and more-ish; a 2013 Aglianico “Core”, that sells for £14 a glass. A little of this wine goes a long way, but I could happily have taken my time with a bottle.

To finish off our meal, which left us sated but not uncomfortably full, we had some punchy hazelnut gelato, made that morning and whipped to the texture of a cloud. And we tasted the Amalfi lemon soufflé, another airy confection, but this time we poured hot and spicy molten chocolate into its middle. It hit the register on all counts: tart, bitter, sweet and chilli. A perfect end to the meal.

Likes: Unpretentious refinement and food to remember. A modestly sized wine list from small producers across the country (the cellar, in fact, is organized regionally, so you can trace a circuit from north to south Italy) offers wine not just by the glass but for very reasonable prices by the carafe as well.

Dislikes: There’s not much to cavil about.. This is food that deserves to be enjoyed more widely. Shoreditch, are you still listening?

Verdict: Chef Lello’s take on Sardinian and Puglian fare has all the warmth and flavour of southern home cooking, but with a finesse that comes from true artistry. Highly recommended.

2 for 1 Cocktails at Clerkenwell & Social

Name: Clerkenwell & Social

Where: 2-5 St John's Square, London, EC1M 4DE, www.clerkenwellandsocial.com

Cost: All cocktails are £8.95, and weekdays from 5pm to 8pm, they are 2 for 1. On Saturdays until 9pm, it is 2 for 1 all day, on both cocktails and pizza. White wines start at £16.95 for a Finca Valero Macabeo, D.O. Carinena from Spain. Red wines start at £17.95 for a Carignan-Grenache blend from France. Perrie-Jouet Grand Brut Champagne is well priced at £55. Meantime London Pale Ale is on tap at £4.90 per pint. 

Pizzas cost from £8 for a Margherita to £12 for a spicy Nduja. There are daily specials, as well as a variety of bar snacks, and sharing boards of cheese (£12) or cured meats (£14).   

About: Clerkenwell & Social was opened in June 2015 by the Marylebone Leisure Group (the team behind The Marylebone and The Princess of Wales and Barsmith Primrose Hill) the bar is next to the ancient St John's Castle in Clerkenwell. 

Set over two floors, Clerkenwell & Social has the feel of a quirky pub, with vintage books suspended from the ceiling, also forming the covers for the cocktail menu.

It specialises in house-infused cocktails and pizza, and has a large outdoor terrace. The bar makes its own infusions for example coffee rum, passion fruit vodka, wild berry gin, mustard vodka.

What We Ate: We really wanted to like the food at Clerkenwell & Social, but unfortunately it was a total let-down. We ordered a couple of bar snacks and pizze, and were surprised to find everything brought to the table at the same time. This meant we had a mad rush to eat everything before it all went cold.  The arancini with mushrooms and truffle oil (£4.50) was completely non-descript, and was served with what seemed to be shop-bought pesto.

Worse still were the calamari (£6) - these were dry and tough, served with a tartare sauce that tasted straight out of a jar.

For the pizze, we chose the Portobello (£10.50) and the Nduja (£12). The Portobello pizza was described as having a topping of Portobello mushrooms, Dolce Latte cheese, pine nuts and truffle oil. At first glance, the pizza looked passable if a bit colourless, but on the palate, the dough was very dry and brittle, it lacked flavour and any texture. As for the topping, it also seemed to have Mozzarella rather than the creamy, blue Dolce Latte cheese as described.

The Nduja pizza (£12) was marginally better but the dough was still very dry and chewy. It had tomatoes, mozzarella, spicy Nduja sausage and pancetta (bacon).

What We Drank: We had a couple of cocktails to start, these were well made and strong. "Breaking Good" had Pisco infused with chili, lime juice, tarragon syrup, homemade bitters and egg white. "Love is a Smoke" featured a blend of Merlot, Aperol and Campari and Bourbon, infused with smoked apple-wood chips.

With our pizza, we had a couple of pints of lovely Meantime London Pale Ale (£4.90).    

Likes: The cocktails were strong, well-made, and very well priced at £8.95. Even better during happy hour weekdays between 5-8pm, or all day Saturdays until 9pm when all cocktails are 2 for 1. The range of beers is good. 

Dislikes: The food was a real let-down. 

Verdict: A great local place for well-made, strong and reasonably-priced cocktails and craft beers. The Italian-inspired menu read well, but its delivery was a let-down and needs to be looked at by the restaurant management.

Gigi's - A Preview from The London Foodie Tipster!

Name: Gigi's

Where: 22 Woodstock Street, Mayfair, London W1C 2AR
www.gigismayfair.com

Cost: Starters are priced from £8.50 to £15.00, with pasta dishes from £14.00 to £27.00, mains from £19.50 to £36, and side dishes at £4.50. Two or three course set lunch menus are £22 or £25 (Mon to Fri, 12 - 3pm). These change weekly, and include vegetarian options.  Cocktails range from £8.50 to £11.50.

About: Opened in September 2014, this Italian restaurant headed by the Neapolitan chef Ivan Simeoli, previously of Club Gascon and The Wallace, is tucked away at the end of a tiny enclave off Oxford Street that could easily be missed.

Gigi's is an elegant spot, on which it seems no money has been spared, with classic parquet floors, plush green velvet seating, chandeliers and a magnificent cocktail bar.

I could not fail to notice that on the evening we were there, all the waiting staff were Russian. On further investigation, it turns out that the restaurant is Russian owned, which might explain the staffing, and the huge sums that appear to have been spent on the decor. It also claims to have  served the world's most expensive cocktail at £9000 a pop.

What We Ate: It is rare in a restaurant for me to find that I want to order many items from the menu, but this was an issue at Gigi's, and choosing was difficult. After much deliberation, we decided to start our meal with the roasted octopus with borlotti beans and flamed onion broth (£11.50). I love the combination of seafood and beans, and here the octopus was excellent, with a deliciously char-grilled flavour and sweetness from the onions, and surprisingly was even more tender than the accompanying beans.

The vitello carpaccio tonnato (£13.50) is one of Italy's most popular regional specialties  from Turin. Gigi's take on this Italian classic, dotted with leaves of radicchio and sorrel, was superb, with finely cut rare veal, and a light and creamy fresh tuna mayonnaise. Having enjoyed this dish on a number of occasions in Italy, I can safely state that Gigi's was the best I have eaten to date.

The ravioli with Amalfi lemon and buffalo ricotta (£14.00), from the pasta section, had a heady citrus aroma, and a rich buttery sauce. A refined, beautifully presented dish, it transported me straight back to my last visit to Sorrento (reviewed here).

The pappardelle Zafferano with ossobuco and sage butter (£19.50), had freshly made, paper thin pasta, nearly as wide as lasagne. Served with veal and bone-marrow, this was rich, sweet and full of flavour. The chef had substituted the more traditional risotto with freshly made pasta, which worked a treat.

The salt marsh English lamb, with heritage carrots, sheep's milk and crunchy shallots (£24) was in my opinion the star of the meal. Tender and full of flavour, and with a magnificent, highly concentrated jus, it was exquisite both to the eye and the palate.
  

The White Park rib eye beef was served medium rare, with turnip tops and mustard (£36). Richly flavoured and well presented, this was also very good, although compared with the lamb, it did not fare so well in flavour or value for money.

For dessert, we opted for the Ivan Simeoli's interpretation of tiramisu (£7.50). A delectable deconstruction of an overfamiliar classic, this featured chocolate tuile, coffee meringue and a coffee parfait.

The liquorice sandwich with apple bubbles (£7.50) was very fine, with an intensely flavoured and aromatic apple foam, and a well made hazelnut parfait.

What We Drank: We kicked off with a Silver-tini cocktail - a refreshing concoction of lychees, gin, elderflower cordial, lime and pink champagne (£11.50). Equally good was the Rose Petal Martini, gin-based (Hendricks), but flavoured with rose and voilet liqueurs and lychee puree (£10.50).

With the main course, we had a glass of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (£7.50 per glass), which was not a great match for the quality of the cooking.

Likes: The salt marsh English lamb was excellent, as was the vitello carpaccio tonnato, and both pasta dishes. Desserts were innovative and skillfully presented. Cocktails were strong and well made. The food menu is in the main well priced for the location.  

Dislikes: None

Verdict: There is some first rate cooking at Gigi's - Ivan Simeoli is a creative and talented chef using fantastic Italian produce to reinvent some of his country's classics. It's early days for Gigi's, and while it tries to find its feet on the London culinary scene, there is some serious cooking at surprisingly reasonable prices to be had. Highly recommended.

A Foodie Pilgrimage in Campania, Italy

Having recently spent a blissful week on the Amalfi Coast of Italy (reviewed here and here), I was thrilled to return to the region by invitation of the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) on a foodie expedition to learn about some of Campania’s produce.

A region of great beauty and contrasts, Campania, on the southwestern tip of Italy has edgy Naples at its heart, ancient Pompeii nearby, as well as some of the most luxurious summer retreats on the Amalfi coast and Capri, where artists, celebrities and well-healed travellers have flocked for decades.

Life is a Beach!

A culinary and agricultural powerhouse, the region supplies some of the country’s sweetest tomatoes, the best buffalo mozzarella and burrata cheeses, as well as being host to the cities of Gragnano and Naples, the Italian capital of artisan pasta and the birthplace of pizza respectively.

A cheese platter from Campania - buffalo mozzarella, burrata, trecce

A wine-producing region, Campania is also famed for its native grapes, making for elegant whites including Greco di Tufo, Fiano di Avellino, as well as the aromatic Falanghina. It also produces hearty reds made from the native Aglianico grape.

The main purpose of our visit to Campania was to learn about the production process of peeled Italian tomatoes, from the farm to the consumer. We visited two major Italian tinned tomato producers – La Doria (www.gruppoladoria.com) and Calispa (www.calispa.it). At Calispa, we were taken into the production line for their Nobile range of peeled tomatoes.

The process is for the most part automated, from washing the fruit to de-stemming and peeling. The stage which requires the most care and attention is the final selection, which highly trained local Italian women have done for generations.

The sheer quantity of tomatoes being processed was staggering, but not surprising considering that Italy is the second largest producer of tinned tomatoes in the world, behind only California. Sixty percent of the Italian production is exported to Europe, with the UK luckily being one of the largest importers.

There are few tomato-based pasta dishes I can imagine making without using Italian tinned tomatoes, because they are harvested at the peak of their ripeness and flavour, they will make the richest sauces. Peeled tomatoes are one of the pillars of Italian cooking, and without them, there would be no pasta or pizza.

At Calispa, we tried their premium range of peeled tomatoes, Nobile, including the highly regarded San Marzano plum tomatoes, considered by many chefs to be the best in the world. Indeed the San Marzano were sweeter and more intense in flavour than the other varietals I tried, and I can’t think of another peeled tomato I would rather use for pasta sauces today.

To experience for ourselves some of the local peeled tomatoes, a magnificent dinner was held at the seafood restaurant Mare Nostrum (www.ristorantemarenostrum.it) in Salerno. Tomatoes were featured in every course including dessert – a refreshing San Marzano tomato ice cream, accompanied by a Baba of tomato cream and a confit of pachino tomatoes!

San Marzano Tomato Ice Cream

Another interesting visit was to the Syngenta Research Institute (www.syngenta.com), where we met some of the people behind the eye-opening work being carried out there. In Italy, Syngenta has around 400 employees mostly in R&D, where they study among other projects, different methods of helping rural communities increase farming productivity in sustainable ways.

Tomato Crop Research at Syngenta

Syngenta was followed by a visit and lunch at Agriturismo Al Celone, Foggia (www.alcelone.it). Agriturismos are essentially holiday-letting properties on Italian farms, either as part of the farmer's house or in a separate building in the farm grounds.  They are usually better value than hotels and are set in some of the most beautiful parts of the Italian countryside, but best of all, they are generally foodie places offering excellent meals, including lots of produce from the farm itself, and from the locality.

The Agriturismo Al Celone was quite a large, recently restored property with four bedrooms and three dining rooms, set in a farm on the outskirts of the town of Foggia.  This makes it a convenient base for visits to Campania, but is also very close to the plains of Puglia, the Gargano National Park and the Appenine mountains.

Lunch was a simple but delicious affair, starting with a selection of antipasti, including tomatoes over grilled bread, some fantastic cheeses and cold meats, followed by Orechietti pasta.

PDO Burrata of Campania

For me, one of the most interesting visits was to "Mail" – a traditional producer of buffalo mozzarella (www.caseificiomail.it), owned by the Raimondo family.

Buffalo mozzarella is made from the milk of the domestic Italian water buffalo, and is traditionally produced in Campania (which has had its own PDO or Protected Designation of Origin since 1993), and particularly in the provinces of Caserta and Salerno.

It is not entirely clear how water buffalo ended up in Italy (one theory is that the Arabs introduced them to Sicily, and then the Norman kings moved them in around 1,000 AD to southern Italy, initially as work animals). They have certainly been there for many centuries, and cheese has been made from buffalo milk in Campania since at least the twelfth century.

A special feature of the milk is its richness - to produce 1kg of cheese, 5 kg of buffalo milk is required, compared with 8kg of cows milk. A litre of buffalo milks costs three times the price of cow’s milk. On this visit, we saw the whole production process from milk heating, to curdling, curd maturation, spinning, shaping and packaging.

Particularly magnificent is the PDO burrata of Campania (burrata meaning 'buttered') - a stupendous fresh cheese with an outer solid shell of mozzarella, and a centre of creamy fior di latte. This cheese has become a staple in any decent Italian restaurant in London, but unfortunately it does not travel well, and it is hard to find anything in the UK as unctuously rich and flavoursome as the burrata I ate at Mail.  (Incidentally, the best I have had in London was at the restaurant Quattro Passi, reviewed here).

Close to Mail is the 80 hectare buffalo farm Agricola Filippo Morese (www.caseificiotavernapenta.it), where we had the opportunity to learn some interesting facts about the beasts, as well as seeing them close up and personal.

Owned by the Morese family since 1694, today the farm has 600 buffalo kept in modern stables, with several hectares of grassland for grazing. It has a yoghurt bar for visitors, situated in the ancient courtyard at Taverna Penta. Guided tours by the owner, Filippo Morese, or his Swedish wife Flavia are available by prior arrangement.

At Pizzeria Tenuta Antica Braceria (Cava de' Tirreni (SA) 84013
Via Vitale A., tel 0894689378) in the little hamlet of Sant' Anna II, 6 miles northwest of Salerno, we were given a pizza-making demonstration, including the use of peeled tomatoes as a base sauce.

The pizzeria produced some of the best pizze I have eaten anywhere - all their pizza bases are left to prove for 24 hours before being stretched out, topped with the most flavoursome local ingredients, and of course incomparable tomato sauce, before being whacked into a wood-fired oven. This is a gem of a place, relatively undiscovered (it does not have a website), and I highly recommend a visit if you are in Campania.

From pizza to pasta, the demonstration was followed by a visit to Pastificio Di Martino (www.pastadimartino.com), one of the oldest and most famous pasta manufacturers in Gragnano, the capital of artisan pasta in Italy. Here, we met Guiseppe Di Martino, the third generation of the family and the current owner.

Pasta has been produced in Gragnano for over 500 years, and is considered by Italian chefs to be the country's finest. Indeed it was granted its own PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) quality designation by the EU in 2013.

So what makes Gragnano pasta better than pasta from other parts of Italy? Gragnano producers are thought to have become so expert in the pasta making because of several factors unique to the town. One is that, before the advent of modern heaters, Gragnano had just the right combination of salty sea breezes and sunshine to provide the perfect conditions for drying pasta outdoors. Today, this is reflected in the lower temperatures and longer drying times (50 to 65°C for 18 to 80 hours depending on the shape) compared with the rest of Italy (80 to 100°C for 4 hours).

A second reason is that Gragnano pasta is made exclusively from the Senatore Cappelli durum wheat semolina native to southern Italy, giving a unique flavour and a higher percentage of protein than any other pasta in the country.

Moreover, the combination of low temperature drying and high protein content gives rise to pasta with stronger walls. As the hydroscopic starch cells absorb water, they push out the walls of the pasta, but since these are strong from the high protein content and slow drying, they will not easily break but remain al dente during cooking. 

Finally, the slow extrusion through a bronze die used in Gragnano gives rise to a roughened surface, ideal for holding the pasta sauce and flavours.

Pastificio Di Martino produces huge quantities of pasta, of which 80% is exported, including an own-brand Tesco variety (Lumache shape for 89p, buy it here) we saw being labelled up during our visit, so look out for Gragnano pasta at your local supermarket.

The closing event of the trip was a cooking show and superb dinner at the Citta' del Gusto Napoli del Gambero Rosso (www.gamberorosso.it), featuring one-Michelin-starred chef Raffaele Vitale of Casa del Nonno13 (www.casadelnonno13.it) in nearby Sant’Eustachio di Mercato San Severino.

Chef Rafaelle Vitale

We learned how to make the local PGI Gragnano pasta in three different styles - bucatini pizzaiola style with cherry tomatoes, mezzi canneroni lisci with peeled tomatoes and basil, and finally ziti with Neapolitan ragu sauce.

The mezzi canneroni lisci, despite being the simplest pasta dish, was to me the most interesting. The pasta was cooked in water for only two minutes, then transferred to a simple sauce of peeled tomatoes, basil, olive oil and salt, where it was cooked for a few minutes more. Cooked in this way, the pasta absorbed the highly flavoured tomato sauce, and was outstanding.

Dinner featured the finest produce of Campania, served with elegant simplicity and accompanied by local wines from Villa Raiano (www.villaraiano.com).

Tomato salad with buffalo mozzarella was followed by a delectable aubergine parmigiana cooked individually in jars – one of Chef Raffaele Vitale’s signature dishes.

Having opted for a later flight, I had most of the last day to explore Salerno on my own before returning to the UK (this consisted mainly in researching all the town’s restaurants for my final lunch).

The lovely main town of the Amalfi coast, Salerno is a great spot to spend a few days, with a beautiful seafront promenade, the Castello di Arechi and the magnificent Duomo all worthy of a visit.

The seafood restaurant L'Unico (http://www.lunicoristorante.it/), near the Duomo, came highly recommended, and this is where I headed for my last meal in Campania. This is a simple restaurant serving a selection of excellent Mediterranean dishes at reasonable prices. The outdoor courtyard in front of the restaurant is a nice place to sit and enjoy your meal whilst people watching.

I started with a couple of antipasti – fried anchovies stuffed with scamorza cheese and mint (€8) got proceedings off to a good start with a ½ litre carafe of a light and fruity Falanghina, produced by A. Sammarco (€7). The combination of cheese and fish worked well in this dish, which goes to show that deep-rooted culinary rules are there to be challenged.

This was followed by a platter of well-made, flavoursome roast courgette flowers stuffed with ricotta cheese (€6).

For main, I opted for Spaghettone al Riccio di Mare or sea urchin pasta (€12). The sea urchin was very fresh and made into a creamy lemony sauce - this was a brilliant dish and one that warrants a visit to L’Unico on its own right. I enjoyed my meal at L’Unico and would recommend it to anyone visiting Salerno.

Writing this post, I am reminded of how much I experienced and learnt about Campania’s superb produce – its preserved peeled tomatoes (San Marzano especially), buffalo mozzarella and burrata, the wonderful pasta of Gragnano and not least, the outstanding pizze of Naples and the region as a whole. I came away from this trip with a deeper understanding of the provenance and quality of these ingredients, and will be looking to incorporate them in my cooking repertoire in the UK.

Special thanks to the Italian Trade Agency, Antica Pasta di Gragnano and the Associazione Nazionale Industriali Conserve Alimentari Vegetali and Citta del Gusto for hosting this trip.