Little Italy, 21 Frith Street, London W1 (020 7734 4737). Meal for two, every second Wednesday of the month, £120
It is a cold, wet winter's lunchtime, but inside Little Italy on Soho's Frith Street there is palpable warmth which has nothing to do with central heating. It is the second Wednesday of the month and by tradition – a very new tradition, but a tradition all the same – that's the day the restaurant belongs to Elena Salvoni, as it once used to every day of the week. Elena, tiny, silver-haired, neatly dressed in black as ever, is the great Soho maître d', and has been for seven decades. Yes, seven – she is 90. She is a link to the kind of old Soho that people like me, who are nowhere near old enough to remember it, like to claim nostalgia for. She ran front of house at Café Bleu during the war, and then took over at the famed Bianchi's (on the site of what is now Little Italy),, moved to Escargot for another couple of decades before being given a berth at a restaurant named in her honour, Elena's L'Etoile in Charlotte Street.
Elena has stories like MPs have indiscretions. She looked after Michael Redgrave when he was on leave in the Second World War, brought Ella Fitzgerald's dinner to her dressing room when she was performing at Ronnie Scott's, was friends with the Python boys when they were poor, and remained friends with the likes of Sean Connery when he became rich. She was a part of the old Soho of Maltese hoods and hookers from the East End called Spanish Betty, and drunks who needed looking after. Her 90th birthday last year was celebrated in the press, and though she had stepped back to only overseeing the lunch service, she made it clear she was happy to die in harness. The management, Corus Hotels, decided it was an "appropriate" time for her to retire, which is the kind of thing middle managers do to the English language.
But Soho has a long memory. In her Bianchi's days Elena worked with the grandfather of the family that owns Little Italy (and Bar Italia next door), and when they heard what had happened they asked her to come back to oversee lunch on the second Wednesday of every month. And so she does, in her tidy black two-piece and steel-framed glasses, and her regulars come back as well. The mood is warm, familiar and embracing, though anybody can come and everybody should.
When the space reopened as Little Italy a decade or so back, it was tight and noisy, the walls crammed with black-and-white pictures of crooners, but the food was always good. I used to go there for great rustling plates of frito misto. Though it was never cheap – it still isn't – it always delivered. Since then it has expanded and is now rather plush. Upstairs there are seating areas in studded sea-green leather, and shiny walls tiled in a tiny mosaic of shimmering white and jade.
It's fancy, though the food is far less so. It is a reliable solid Italian that has served a particular louche, British public over the years. There is a lunch menu at £19.50 for three courses, and from that a starter of hot grilled smoked mozzarella oozing across the plate with a cherry tomato and olive salad and anchovy mayonnaise did not feel like the budget option. That said, crisp curls of deep-fried calamari served in a boat made of greaseproof paper was worth the extra expense. Main-course pasta dishes are huge bowls of carbs, cooked so they still have some bite and give, dressed with lots of the advertised ingredients, be it a dense, gamey ragu of wild boar, hunks of lobster or a scarlet sauce of tomatoes cooked down to their essence. An escalope of veal came breaded and served on the bone, with a half of muslin-dressed lemon. None of this is likely to rock you back in your seat. But it will feed you very well indeed.
If you have room and commitment, order their innocent-sounding apple tart, a depraved confection of crunchy amaretti-based crumb, caramel sauce and, for appearance's sake, a little apple, surrounded by crème anglais. It is one of the last indecent experiences in a much-less-filthy Soho. Most of all, bask in genuinely old-fashioned service and the attentions of Elena, who will always make you feel she is pleased to see you. Because she is.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place
