This week we celebrated Bikerboy’s birthday by returning to Locanda Locatelli’s restaurant with friends and we’ve been looking forward to it since booking the table a few weeks ago. Our first visit was last Spring for my birthday, it was one of our most enjoyable lunches we’ve had for a very long time. The dish that was the star of the meal was the lobster linguine, the sauce was delicious, made of tomatoes, the lobster shell, garlic and a little chilli just to give a kick and I’m not sure what else was in there but it gave your mouth a very satisfying full lingering feeling that forced you pick up the bread and mop up every little droplet of sauce left on your plate.
On the return to Locanda Locatelli I had in mind to have the lobster linguine again, even though I’m the sort of person who rarely orders the same thing twice. They had replaced the lobster linguine with langoustine linguine which happens to be Bikerboy’s favourite shellfish. Three out of four of us had the linguine. The other starter was scallops on a bed of celeriac with saffron sauce, the scallops looked plumped and just seared and apparently tasted delicious. The langoustine although good, for me it was not quite to the same intense flavour as I remembered the lobster dish having. For main courses I had the wild seabass which is baked inside a pastry herb case, once it arrives at your table the pastry is opened and discarded, the fish was perfectly cooked and was exactly what it said on the tin, fresh and simple, you could choose to have it dressed with extra virgin olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar. Bikerboy had sirloin steak with winter vegetables and spinach with lemon and Marsala sauce. One of our friends had roast breast of duck that came with spelt broccoli garlic and chilli, her duck was substantial as well as breast it came with duck leg which her husband had his eye on, that was as close he got to it. Steve had one of the specials, roast guinea fowl served with lots and lots of black truffle shavings. Both of our friends main courses went down well and I took from their clean plate that they enjoyed every part of it. Bikerboy was disappointed with his steak, nothing terrible about it just lack the flavour you would hope to have from a well hung beef and a bit tough, not bad but not that great either.
Going back to our first visit to this restaurant the lobster linguine was the outstanding dish but on the opposite scale the other memorable dish for the wrong reasons was the tiramisu. Bikerboy loves his tiramisu and complains bitterly that I only make it once a year for Christmas or occasionally for parties, he couldn’t pass the opportunity of trying one of his favourite desserts in a place where all the dishes had been excellent. Unfortunately this tiramisu was not a hit with either of us then. So on this visit I noted this to Bikerboy but he couldn’t remember, his food memory is as dire as my memory of bike pipes. I warned him that it was nothing like the one I make, it was the dish we didn’t enjoyed last time but in spite of my warnings both he and one of our friends chose it. I and our other friend had the chocolate selection where you had three mini chocolate desserts, a dark 70% parfait type of mousse topped with chocolate nibs, a warm 40% chocolate mousse surrounded by a cylinder chocolate shape, this was the surprise for me, of how the chocolate cylinder didn’t melt whilst holding the warm chocolate mousse inside. The last chocolate dessert was white chocolate ice-cream. We both devoured this exclaiming lots of mmmms along the way and watched our partners look on enviously, ok I was good enough to give Bikerboy a spoonful, I know, I’m very generous. Their tiramisu was disappointing again, the mascarpone cream is extremely light and airy which is not a bad thing in itself, it wasn’t what they were expecting, they wished their mascarpone cream tasted less of a foamy mousse and more of a rich cream. But what was the awful thing for them was in the bottom of the glass there is an amaretto biscuit soaked in amaretto alcohol which once your spoon strikes it, the strong flavour of amaretto penetrates the dessert. If like Bikerboy and our friend you loathe amaretto it ruins your dessert. Afterwards on the way home Bikerboy reflected that he was silly not to listen to me when it comes to food, it would be like me going into a bike shop and not take his advice on the bikes.
We had one bottle of white wine which I wish I remembered the name because we really enjoyed, it was recommended by the sommelier, it was perfect for the different palates at the table as we all like different whites. I’m going to have to ring the restaurant to find out what it was, and one glass of red to accompany the guinea fowl. We all had teas and coffees that came with petite fours and three bottles of water, the bill including optional service came to £170 per couple, the white bottle was £47 and the glass of red £11.
We all enjoyed the food with the exception of the amaretto flavoured tiramisu and the waiters just like in our first visit were friendly and attentive and efficient, and we forgave them for being forgotten when it came to take our dessert order. We didn’t have to wait long in between courses and everything was served hot, well presented and was the perfect backdrop to celebrate a joint birthday meal.
