8.5/10
Address 45 Grafton Way, London W1
Telephone 020-7387 2521
Open Lunch, Mon-Fri, noon-3pm; dinner, Mon-Sat, 6-11pm.
Price £30-£35 a head. No wheelchair access.
Thinking about my return to Sardo and how to present it to you, my mind keeps returning to a scene from possibly the funniest film of all time. "You know, I could lay a big line on you and we could do a lot of roleplaying," Dustin Hoffman tells Jessica Lange in Tootsie, quoting her back to herself verbatim. "But the simple truth is, is that I find you very interesting and I'd really like to make love to you."
Even though honesty inevitably proves the very worst policy for him, I cannot lie now. I could lay a big line on you and pretend it was the rustic, yet imaginative, cuisine that drew me back to Sardo, but the simple truth is, it was the waitress. When this place opened some four years ago, it was patrolled by an imperious, raven-haired Sardinian woman whose flashing eyes of deepest jet suggested the sort of signorina who'd stick a meat cleaver in a chap's skull for failing to finish his linguine. Somehow, she stuck in the mind, not quite like a cleaver, but indelibly enough, and the sense of anticipation as I waddled along Tottenham Court Road reminded me - a little needlessly, given the presence of a mirror above our bathroom sink - just what a sad little middle-aged schlump I've become.
She's gone, of course. "You keep looking round as if you've lost something," said my friend and accountant Barry, a regular here, as I sent my eyes on a fruitless quest down a long, narrow Fitzrovian drawing room, plainly done out with old floorboards and white walls cluttered with nothing but some fairly hideous metallic light fittings that could use the exoticism of a certain vanished waitress.
"It's Federica, I suppose? She's left." On reflection, perhaps this was just as well, allowing us to concentrate on such things as the demented new Religious Hatred Bill and its threat to freedom of speech (Barry is treasurer of English PEN, the body dedicated to protecting writers from political interference), the almost equally gutwrenching matter of nonexistent pension provision and even the food.
The formula here is the one that explains why Italian is our dominant cuisine. Take the finest, freshest ingredients, cook them with precision, present them attractively but without fuss, and all without charging a fortune. Why so few restaurants crack it is a mystery, because it never fails. When you add to the medley a dash of pride and authenticity, it's a joy (right up to the moment when the owner treats you to a Sardinian digestivo that tastes like three parts Gee's Linctus to one part yak urine).
Barry kicked off with that obsession of the Italian restaurateur, mushrooms. Or rather grilled porcini (£9.50), a large bowl of majestic fungi, which, he said, had a surprisingly strong flavour and were so fresh they might have picked that morning. My starter was a Sardinian speciality called malloreddus (£8.90), tiny cones of a hard wheat pasta, patriotically coloured green, red and white, served fairly al dente in a rich sauce of tomato and aromatic sausage, the ensemble carrying a gratifying chilli kick.
We were breaking the back of a really good, light red called Negrente di Oliene (£23, from an excellent and fairly priced wine list), and Barry was offering to send someone round to examine my prize collection of 16 years' worth of unopened bank statements, when the main courses arrived. My nodino of veal was grilled with a thick top layer of herbs and spices that worked fine with meat that was quite good enough to need no help, and came with spinach and those scrunchy little sautéed potatoes the Italians do so brilliantly. Barry's venison steak, though, was the guv'nor, the strips of this princeliest of meats grilled to that alluring shade of red that makes me want to lean over, grab the lot and stuff it all in after the fashion of Henry VIII before he did the Table Manners course at Lucy Clayton's finishing school branch near Hampton Court. The deer, served on a mound of lentils, was glorious. The tiramisu we shared for pud (£7) was predictably divine.
Restaurants that open to a loud, critical buzz generally struggle to maintain the form several years later, especially when they open a second branch (in this case, in the heart of drug-laden Primrose Hill), but Sardo seems every bit as good as I remember it. Almost.
