Caffe Caldesi, 118 Marylebone Lane, London W1U 2QF

Caffe Caldesi, 118 Marylebone Lane, London W1U 2QF

03/01/2014

www.caldesi.com

She said: Been wanting to come to this one for over a decade and today was the day we finally made it. Despite the risk that the fame around Caldesi and his cookbooks, cooking school and culinary virtuoso would have made this place stale, Café Caldesi was well worth the wait. I had booked the restaurant upstairs which is the more formal dining space at slightly higher prices than the downstairs more informal bistro-bar space. He wanted to eat downstairs and took his seat and started to peruse the menu but after wandering upstairs and seeing a room still decked out for the festive season, with romantic white table cloths and windows overlooking Marylebone Lane, I moved us back up! Glad I did. I can see why this place has lasted; it’s a classic. Creative but still reliable dishes, great service in a restaurant that managed to create that neighbourhood Italian feel without the cheesy chequered table cloths and hanging candle-waxed wine bottles. I had a large, delicious espresso martini which was well worth the caffeine headache I had after and kicked off with a juicy mushroom filled with some sort of cheese and breadcrumbs followed by a perfectly cooked penne with salmon in a vodka sauce which was impossible to stop eating despite the decent portion size. I really wanted dessert but was just too stuffed. Having chosen from the set lunch menu my food was great value at £15.50 and the cocktail prices are also reasonable for the area. It’s a shame we didn’t discover Caldesi sooner but now that we have it’ll be a local we’ll return to. Besides, he wants to make it passed perusing the bistro-bar menu I tore him away from (though he seemed happy in our romantic, window-table of the festive first floor).

He said: What stands out for me about Caldesi is the old school, genuine, neighbourhood restaurant vibe. Caldesi is not trying to be the kool kid, or reinvent the wheel with desiccated Bohemian snail's antler carpaccio, or other new-fangled techniques and ingredients. There's something really compelling about the tucked-away setting, the attentive care from the tie-wearing maître d', the shared pepper mill (is pepper still a precious commodity?) and the large, communal bowl of pre-grated Parmesan. That last detail alone tells you what you need to know about what comes out of the kitchen: the food is good, nothing particularly memorable, but perfectly fine. Caldesi reminds me a lot of what fancy (ie. no pizza) Italian restaurants used to be like when I was a kid, and it's that blast of nostalgia that I liked most. I also liked that the house cocktails are priced nostalgically. There are plenty of better alternatives in London, but I liked knowing that Caldesi is there and I look forward to going back - even if it takes us another 10 years to book; that's the great thing about nostalgia: it only gets better with age.