Alberico at Aspinalls
6.25/10
Telephone 020-7 499 4599
Address 27-28 Curzon Street, London W1
Open All week, lunch, 12-3pm, dinner, 7pm-3am
For keen students of sartorial etiquette, life in the noughties is a mine-field. Just after Christmas, at the PDC world darts event at Alexandra Palace, a friend and I were denied entry to the players' bar for wearing jeans. If you've never been told, by an extra from The Long Good Friday, that you're too ill-dressed to mix with the regency fops of darts, know that it's quite a thing to hear.
More recently, meanwhile, another friend joined me for lunch at a casino that has been among the planet's snootiest since the days when its founder John Aspinall - a man fondly remembered for his eccentric zoo-keeping and stated desire for 3.5 billion of the world's population to die - plotted with fellow Bond villain manqué Jimmy Goldsmith to replace Harold Wilson's government with a Francoist military regime.
Had that pipe dream come to pass, we would surely have been spared the shameful scene at the front desk. A glacial young woman initially aped her brother bouncer at Ally Pally by announcing that jeans were not permitted. And then, though we made no protest, she made a quick call and dismissively pointed us past the baroque wall panelling towards the lift. The dress code so rigorously enforced in darts had been casually waived in Mayfair, and I bemusedly began mentally composing a "Dear Sir, I wish to complain in the strongest terms..." letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph.
Upstairs in Alberico at Aspinalls, which is now open to the public so long as one person joins the casino (it takes two minutes), a glance at the menu hinted at the reason for this laxity. When you're charging £30 for antipasti, you're not really in a position to restrict access to a party comprising Sidney Vicious, Rab C Nesbitt, Swampy and the late Miss Shepherd from the caravan in Alan Bennett's garden.
What clientele they might be targeting with this room - underlit and a bit ersatz, but pretty enough in a Roman villa courtyard kind of way (sloping stained-glass skylight, lots of foliage, stained antique mirrors, giant amphora) - we couldn't decide. My money was on old Harrovian arms dealers seeking to impress Syrian guests, while my friend thought it aimed at "a particular breed of Swinging 60s British actor - Roger Moore, definitely, and maybe Joan Collins".
The rest of us simply couldn't afford it, and mightn't wish to even if we could because, while Alberico Penati (formerly of Harry's Bar) is a gifted and respected chef, he isn't the peerless genius required to justify prices intended for those who can drop £10,000 at the baccarat table without blinking.
Still, there are cute freebie touches at either end of the meal (focaccia and vintage Parmesan at the start, lavish sweets and chocolates at the end), and most of what the Italian waiters in their 007ish white tuxedos served in between was excellent. My pappardelle with hare ragù was an impressive dish, the fresh pasta being perfectly al dente and the winey, gamey sauce falling just the right side of overpowering. My friend also liked his Tuscan zolfini beans with three plump scampi, grilled ricotta and olive oil (and at 30 quid the plate, so he bleeding well ought). "Everything's delicious, even if I can't entirely see the point of putting them together."
"Is Aspers still with us?" he mused, taking in the elephant jostling for space with the glasses, crockery and mauve tulips (each table boasts a different animal in honour of the old boy). No, he died long ago, I disappointed.
"Ah, of course, a tiger got him."
"No, the tiger got a handler."
"Ah, yes, always better that way."
The chef restricts his interest in rare species to the fancier breeds of cattle, and I went for the contrafilet of Fassone beef, which when it arrived turned out to be impeccably rare, butter-textured meat with shavings of black truffle (though at these prices it ought really to have been the infinitely superior white). The accompanying chestnut and mushroom sauce, studded with pancetta, was gutsy and great, but curiously chef Alberico had lobbed in a large amount of cloves, and these nuclear warheads in the spice arsenal brought a faint aftertaste of the dentist's chair to an otherwise brilliant dish. My friend's fillet of venison, with radicchio, bacon and olive, was pretty magnificent, too, the amazingly tender deer so pure and blameless it was almost the colour of veal.
Both puddings - a bitter orange cheesecake and a memorably intense coffee granita - were simply sensational. And the tiny, multicoloured, liqueur-filled jelly beans served with coffee were perfectly adorable. But the bill, as you will see if you cast your eyes over to the left, was not, and we went on our way wondering why those who can afford such preposterous prices for rich Italian cooking wouldn't prefer the Eurotrash swankiness of the nearby Cipriani to the glum discretion of Alberico at Aspinallæs, where there's always a lukewarm welcome for those considered too scruffy to rub vinyl-clad shoulders with Phil "The Power" Taylor, Wayne "Hawaii 501" Mardle and the other dandies of modern day darts.
The bill
£3 cover charge x 2 £6
Pappardelle with hare ragù £20
Beans with scampi and ricotta £30
Filet venison £28
Contrafilet Fassone beef £32
Coffee granita £7
Bitter orange cheesecake £7
2 glasses Pieropan £17.50
3 Diet Cokes £3
1 bottle Blenheim water £3
Subtotal £153.50
Service @ 17.5% £26.86
Total £180.36
