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db eats: Sartoria
Sartoria in London is a terrific restaurant in most respects: comfortable room, fairly full at 7.45 pm, extra friendly staff and a very helpful sommelier who was previously at the Ritz, with an interesting Italian wine list.
We chose an exceptional rosé, Ca’ dei Frati 2008, which was expensive at £38 but what one would expect at a West End venue from D&D. It’s just a pity they can’t cook.
We went for the £28 two course menu, but don’t let that fool you. Virtually everything on that menu is subject to a surcharge. Even the grilled fish – which consisted of spare bits and pieces from the main menu specials, from sea bream to razor clams – was subject to a £5 excess.
This was a truly awful dish: the bream was bitty and undercooked, the sardine was breaded and tasteless and the octopus, not there according to the waiter, was the only tasty morsel.
The same surcharge applied to the veal escalope Milanese, which consisted of an ultra cheap cut of veal – red rather than white when you cut into it and probably brought in ready-breaded. If an Italian restaurant can’t do a Milanese, they can’t really do anything.
So what’s happened to the kitchen? It used to be cutting edge, complete with the freshest ingredients and a complexity that encouraged rapturous reviews from serious eaters.
If whatever’s missing isn’t found soon, at £150 for dinner for two, Sartoria will have gone the way of the business suit.
Sartoria
Heathcoat House
20 Savile Row
London W1S 3PR
Tel: +44 (0)207 534 7000
Nights Out On Tuesday, 20.10.09