Vico, 1 Cambridge Circus, London WC2. No booking. Meal for two including drinks: £25-£45
The site on London’s Cambridge Circus now occupied by Vico used to house a branch of Pizza Hut. I went there once in the name of research to eat a 12in pizza with mini-cheeseburgers around the rim, and to hate myself. During my various visits to Vico over its first couple of months – it had a lengthy 50% off soft opening I couldn’t write about – I found comfort in the thought that at least it isn’t still a Pizza Hut. This is about as damning with faint praise as it’s possible to get. Because right now Vico isn’t working.
Its biggest asset is chef Jacob Kenedy, who is a much-liked and truly delightful man. In the court of public opinion these things matter. I make no apology for refusing to review the work of chefs who are unpleasant – the overt racist, say, or the man who bullies both his staff and customers – whatever the apparent merits of their food. There are enough nice people trying to make a go of it to spare me the trouble of paying attention to the bastards.
I’m sure it works the other way round. I can’t help wanting a nice chap like Kenedy to succeed, though it’s perhaps more relevant that his first restaurant, Bocca Di Lupo, is such a terrific place. Yes, it has the pastas and risottos that you expect of a rugged Italian, but there are other bare-knuckle joys – particularly its own-spiced sausages flavoured with roast onions or pistachios. There are gnarly salamis, and Roman artichokes deep fried “in the Jewish style”. There are red prawns complete with heads to be sucked at and deep-fried olives stuffed with minced pork and veal. It’s a classy place serving delicious food with self-consciously rough edges.
The idea behind Vico, I think, is to offer up a version of that food in a quasi fast-food setting and therefore at a much lower price. Kenedy says that in Vico, which means “village” in Italian, he has created an indoor piazza. I’m not sure about that. With the polished concrete floors, high, curvy counters for eating at, the tumblers for drinking draught prosecco from, and slightly random outbreaks of saturated colour, it feels as if the Italian Ikea concession has been allowed to go all local.
The food is lined up in four sections along the counter: one for pizzas, another for seafood, a third for fried foods – arancini and the like – and a section for salads. Almost everything is charged at £3 per 100g. You order what you like, it’s weighed on the same platter and off you go. Anything that needs cooking is brought over to you. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It isn’t. I have complained in the past about restaurants that insist upon explaining the concept of the menu to you, mostly because if a concept needs explaining, it’s too bloody complicated.
That applies here. The pricing system is meant to be transparent. In reality I have no idea what 100g of salad looks like. And a saffron arancini stuffed with veal ragu is going to be a lot denser than a few fried anchovies. The poor serving staff were forever explaining the way it worked to baffled-looking customers. The floor was patrolled by management experienced in the way of front-of-house in a standard restaurant but, here, looking completely out of their depth.
The main problem is that the food isn’t engineered to be served this way. The best option is some of the seafood, which is cooked to order. Anchovies, prawns and thick tranches of cod deep fried in the lightest of batters are quite the bargain at £3 per 100g. But soft-shell crabs are just wet and greasy. A grilled skewer of tuna is interspersed with lumps of aubergine that are soaked with oil. From the fried section I’m sure those huge arancini, flavoured with saffron and filled with thick, sticky ragu, are superb a minute or two out of the deep-fat fryer. Here they end up on the platter tepid and congealing; you don’t know whether to eat them or lob them back at the counter as an act of protest.
As to their pizzas, they may be served like this in Naples, but reheated pizza is still reheated pizza. The spiced salami and chilli topping is great. I’d love to try it freshly baked. They also serve flat “pies”, filled with the likes of anchovy and salt cod. The two I try are both flaccid and dull. I imagine that straight out of the oven they, too, are lovely.
Presumably because of health and safety demands, the salads are served fridge-cold. This does no favours to either the butternut squash, pine nut and sundried tomato salad or the artichoke hearts in oil. Many things come in oil, which pools on the “greaseproof” paper laid on the oval metal dish. There are volumes of oil that even greaseproof can’t cope with. We end up with slippery metal platters of random items, with little to say to each other, and a bill which does not quite match the casual surroundings.
It turns out that my bill is less than it should be. Later, wandering the counter trying to make sense of it all, I find signs indicating that there are specials, including those soft-shell crabs, which should cost £4 each. I wasn’t told this when I ordered them. Nor was I charged that amount. But presumably I could also have got a larger bill than expected. It should have come to north of £40 in total. A 250ml carafe of the prosecco costs £6, which seems good value, but no price justifies wet, steamed-up glasses to drink it from. We ask for clean ones.
There is more than the seed of a brilliant idea in Vico. It’s the sort of place London needs. But both the pricing and food offering need to be rethought. Meanwhile, comfort yourself at the outpost of Kenedy’s truly brilliant ice-cream outfit, Gelupo, inside Vico, which handles the dessert end of the business. Go for the likes of ricotta sour cherry, apple strudel or the most intense of chocolates with a dense texture and clean taste hinged half way between ice cream and sorbet. Sit on the concrete benches and pretend you’re in Rome. You won’t be, but the ice cream is still very nice.
Jay’s news bites
■ If you want to eat somewhere which really does feel like an indoor village square, try last year’s OFM award-winner Gloucester Services on the M5. Run by the people behind Tebay Services on the M6, the terrific food is either cooked in house, or provided by small, local suppliers. Everyone bangs on about the sausage rolls from Cinderhill Farm, but they are bloody good.
■ One of Britain’s big cheffing jobs is about to change hands with the announcement that Michael Caines is to step down from the Michelin two-starred Gidleigh Park in Chagford, Devon, which he joined in 1994. His final service will be on 3 January, before he moves to concentrate on various hotel and restaurant enterprises. His successor will be Michael Wignall, from the two Michelin-starred Latymer at Pennyhill Park in Surrey (gidleigh.co.uk).
■ In July I was required to correct a News Bites entry that said the Criterion in London’s Piccadilly Circus had gone bust, when in fact it had gone in to administration. Either way the restaurant, with its stunning ornate ceiling, has now closed.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk
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