Bread, Love and Cook
LA GIOCONDA. ITALIAN PIZZERIA/RESTAURANT
La Gioconda Pizzorante is a family run restaurant with a generation of experience of best Italian handmade dishes. Our food is delicious and is made by passionate Italian chefs. Come and dine with us and enjoy our specialities created in our open kitchen and in a cozy atmosphere.
TRULLO RESTAURANT
Highbury's star Italian, two floors of contemporary trattoria with a serious reputation for fresh pasta, charcoal grilling, and wicked fruit tarts.
While evenings are still busy-to-frantic in this two-floored contemporary trattoria, lunchtime finds Trullo calm and the cooking relaxed and assured. A bargain £12 set menu gleans two courses (primi plus either antipasti or dessert) from a daily-changing menu. On our visit, the tempting selection of starters included bright British asparagus with parmesan, and cured trout with wilted spinach and poached egg. Slivers of grilled ox heart were perfectly cooked, with the accompanying roast shallots, beetroot and horseradish almost, but not quite, overwhelming the unexpectedly delicate flavours. Pappardelle with beef shin ragu has been a staple since Trullo’s early days and remains a silky, substantial delight. Seasonal tagliarini with nettles and nutmeg featured an uncooked egg yolk wobbling daintily atop a vast pile of green pasta; when mixed in, it made a wonderfully creamy dish.
In opting for the set menu you miss out on the roasts and grills, but as a giant Black Hampshire pork chop and generous cod with cannellini beans and mussels whisked by our table, we weren’t sorry to have missed out on them – after all, where would we have put the succulent loquat and almond tart?
ARTUSI
This low-key place is minimal in look and feel and unassuming in location, but excellent service, drinks and food place it firmly on the Peckham map.
When Italian food enthusiast Pellegrino Artusi published his book ‘Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well’ in 1891, it marked a turning point in Italian cuisine. Previous Italian cookbooks had genuflected to France, but once word got round about this innovative compendium of home-style Italian recipes (which took a while), copies started moving faster than a Ducati through an amber light. Every nonna had to own a copy, and Italian bookshops still stock it today. But I wonder what the grandfather of Italian cooking would make of this namesake?
This Peckham restaurant is so cutting-edge, so minimal, that there’s not even a name above the door. In looks it’s a long way from the rustic eateries of Artusi’s region (Emilia Romagna), but the quality of the food here does Artusi’s name justice.
Chef Jack Beer’s menu – only to be found on a chalkboard by the entrance – is confidently simple. There’s just a handful of well-priced seasonal dishes on the list including starters, pastas, larger meat and fish plates and a couple of puds. They don’t do side dishes. Starters ranged from safe options such as ricotta and tomato salad, or prosciutto and mortadella, to more adventurous – seared ox heart with olives, pig’s head with salsa verde. On ordering the latter, we were warned that it was very fatty. But our crisp slice of head served with a surprisingly smooth and creamy salsa verde was also rich, earthy and delicious.
Precision cooking was evident in a main of just-cooked whole lemon sole with roasted garlic and monk’s beard (the samphire-like estuarine stems called agretti in Italian), while biting into a piece of ravioli stuffed with silky smooth pea purée was a sweetly sensual experience. Then came dessert: the lightest olive oil cake we’ve encountered, fragrant with orange zest and served with salted honey ice cream. Even a soft scoop of strawberry ice cream was supreme.
Artusi has further turned up the heat on Peckham’s already thriving Bellenden Road culinary scene, but it’s also an unpretentiously low-key place with charming and knowledgeable staff, interesting drinks and excellent food. If Signore Artusi were still around, he might just like it as much as we do.
BY: CELIA PLENDER
