Artusi
Peckham, London
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A dark frontage punctuated by full-length windows reveals a spare-looking café-like interior, a narrow room with plain white walls and a large chalkboard menu. Down some steps at the back, there is a chef's table for eight, with views of the open kitchen. This is Italian dining, Peckham-style, and none the worse for it. The infectious straightforwardness of the approach is reflected in a menu that offers three choices at each stage, with a couple of intervening pasta options. Start perhaps with ox tongue dressed in capery agrodolce and harissa, before rolling on to hake in bisque with monk's beard, violet artichokes and Marinda tomatoes, or a juicy onglet with beetroot and cime di rapa in shallot mustard. Don't want to miss the pasta? Rigatoni with 'nduja and ricotta may well have your name on it. The Italian way with carbo-desserts then produces an irresistibly toothsome walnut cake with blood orange and mascarpone. Wines are not exclusively Italian, but those represent the best way of entering into the spirit. They've got some oranged-up Sicilian Catarratto, if Pinot Grigio now seems a little vecchio cappello.
