Wednesday 2 September 2009

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Jamie's Italian, Canary Wharf




Canary Wharf. Metallic, corporate, souless. A haven for fat cats and misguided tourists but close enough to my house for me to consider it OK to go there - for food (and shopping) only. So on Sunday I trotted off to 'The Wharf' with the beau and some friends to sample the delights of Jamie's Italian. On the website, Jamie describes his restaurant as delivering the flavours of rustic Italy. Simple, wholesome, tasty food. On the whole, this is what we got - and very reasonably priced. We started with antipasti for four - which came on massive wooden plank supported by two very retro looking cans of tomatoes. It was Meat. It was Cheese. It was great and we devoured it. Between me and my companions we then ordered a carbonara, sausage pappadelle, spag bol, seafood linguine, crab and steak. Mine was the pappadelle and I was impressed. Proper al dente pasta with a ragu that was nicely textured without being too watery or overly gristly. I'd certainly believe they serve similar in rural Italian villages. Another nice touch to counteract the hidiously decadent ambiance surrounding the Wharf was that the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu (Prosecco and Champers aside) was a mere £22. Hard to believe I know. It was a delicious Valpollicella - full bodied but with a clean aftertaste. Perfect for the wide variety of foods we ordered.

While the food was chicly rustic, the atmosphere was less so. They have a no booking policy which means having to wait on a bland, non-smoking, open-air terrace which faces Barclays HQ with a neon green pager/table alerter. The front of house woman was stern and told people that the waiting time was an hour just to get rid of them. We in fact only had to wait 25 minutes, and they did give us some complimentary bread and olives which softened the blow. Inside, it was buzzy and youthful, but one thing that did shock me was the music. Having worked for a company that makes bespoke soundtracks for prestigious restaurants I was baffled by the choice of, essentially, cheesy 80s arseness. It wasn't even the good stuff like Phil Collins or Chaka Khan - it was Bananrama. Yeesh. Violins and singing fat men in the endearing trattoria fashion would have done nicely. Or just some non-gay jazz. Or anything really, except the Rama. Anyway, I wasn't there to judge the music, I was there to eat good food. And I did.

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