Locatelli defends single dish restaurants

Italian chef Giorgio Locatelli has defended the recent explosion of single dish restaurants in London, claiming it takes skill to master one dish perfectly.

Giorgio Locatelli photographed at Locanda Locatelli by Lucy Shaw

Speaking exclusively to the drinks business at his recently reopened Michelin-starred restaurant Locanda Locatelli in Marylebone, he said:

“Why not be famous for a single dish? To master one dish is a beautiful thing. Escoffier will be remembered for his peach melba. I have enormous admiration for young chefs who are setting up their own ventures – they are driven by pure willpower.

“More young people want to be chefs today than ever before, which is great – I don’t think single dish restaurants will lead to a generation of underskilled chefs.”

London has recently witnessed a surge of single dish restaurants opening for business, in a sharpening of focus of the casual dining trend.

From Bad Egg in Moorgate, Balls & Company in Soho, Tartufi & Friends at Harrods and Arancini Brothers in Kentish Town, everything from cheese toasties and truffles to meatballs are being given special attention.

Balls & Company in Soho specialises in meatballs

While wary of dubbing London the culinary capital of the world, Locatelli believes the city has been savvy in utilising talent from abroad to improve itself.

“There’s a high level of quality in every world cuisine here. Fine dining has had to evolve to become more of a relaxed proposition – I wouldn’t call Locanda a fine dining restaurant, I’d call it a good restaurant.

“If you become too fine in your focus then it becomes about adulation and I don’t want that. I want us to be approachable as we’re in this for the longterm,” he said.

Locatelli praised London as a city he has “always felt welcome” in, but said he felt rejected by the French while working at La Tour d’Argent in Paris in the ‘90s.

“My time in France was bitter medicine – it was three years of misery as I never felt included. I was working in a very competitive and racist environment and felt a sense of rejection being there, but it was an important learning curve,” he told db.

Locatelli is due to open a pop-up pizza restaurant in Islington this summer and insists his crusts will be crispier than those at Franco Manca.

Locanda Locatelli was forced to close for four months last November after a gas explosion ripped through the kitchen weeks after a £1.2m refurbishment.

The restaurant reopened for business in March following a launch party attended by Locatelli’s close friend Nigella Lawson and restaurant critic AA Gill among others.

The full interview with Giorgio Locatelli will appear in the August issue of the drinks business.