“So far so refined”
There aren’t many restaurants where you can tilt your chair back as your friend waffles, and glimpse the Italian Garden’s columns pricking their way on the horizon. In fact, the Royal Lancaster’s new offering might be the only one.
Rushing in from the scoured grass battlefield we used to call Hyde Park, it feels like the greenery has upped sticks and seeped into the roots of the 60s skyscraper. Sagey, avocadoy tiles and kitsch little detailing, good, almost embroidered-looking silver cutlery and a whole ocean-green Fiat 500 on the way to the loos. It borders on Versace levels of taste with real lemons placed rather pointlessly in ashtrays of the same shade of green, but overall it stays within flirty and fun. The space rises and falls with a main slice, a lower level, a pinched-in outdoor area and then stairs upwards into the torso of the hotel. A tumbling garden of Babylon/Tuscany in the most appropriate setting.
Chef Giuseppe and team have been fiddling away since their January opening. Tortello means a single tortelloni – so, as the name suggests, we expect hyper-precise attention to detail.
Olives and focaccia are available but black-truffle croquettes are recommended. Little adult doughnuts, dare I say artful, oozing ricotta and underground musk, order and slide them through any left-over sauce for a classy way to not waste a drop. Bruschetta of the day didn’t tempt, although prawns, beef carpaccio, crab tortelli and a courgette and asparagus salad did. However, our own London La Latteria burrata plonked down in a tomato gazpacho, little bread islands floating on a basil-oil-slicked sea, was just what our hot little mouths needed after a hearty gossip session in a pub around the corner.
Handmade pasta is another focus. Tagliatelle, Trenette, Tonnarelli, and many more, not all beginning with T, the 8 dishes dominate the menu for those that go gaga for it. The tuna steak sits on a bloody bed of caponata and toasted almonds, shards of the massive sea denizen poking up, having that heft that gives it its true name of steak. Alongside, a Fillet Tagliata of British beef was serviceable with sautéed spinach in salsa verde more memorable than the meat. Fries round this off and I guess along with the pasta is for the well-behaved, affluent American kids that quietly skip past our table on the way to their own. Rich children are nice, aren’t they? When they’re not berating the sad-looking au pair or using their apple watches as battering-rams. If slabs aren’t your bag, there is sea bass, chicken Milanese, aubergine parmigiana or Caesar salad.
So far so refined, I lean back again to eyeball the dustbowl, the Americans giggle with surprising suppression for their people, an evening by the park is shaping up rather nicely. The dessert menu is offered, our eyes glitter, and in amongst the affogato, vanilla gelatos and limoncello cream two more robust options pique our interest. Hazelnut Tiramisu, I mean how could you go wrong we ask? How indeed. 95% cream, tasting of neither coffee nor particularly hazelnuts, this is the worst tiramisu (if you can call it that) I have tried this year. More confusion comes when the chocolate and almond Torta is passed over by the beaming waiter as “your chocolate cake”, and it’s just that, a vaguely nutty wedge of brownie that my nan would proudly serve. Neither dense nor low-lying like the name suggests, coupled with a vanilla ice cream that smelled distinctly cheesy and was barely touched, we are shaken out of our trance rather roughly.
Hotel restaurants and the area in general are not known for taking culinary risks, and I don’t need to tell you that the slant of view comes with a corresponding price tag. However, if you are wandering around Hyde Park, needing a blast of Italian jungle, swing into Tortello, just make sure to swing back out and grab some ice cream from the van resting next to the café by the fountain.