Simple things done really, really well so often trump gimmicky eating experiences, and this knockout Italian-leaning pop-up does it better than most
I had set my eye on 10 Heddon St even before the lease was signed or chefs Chris Leach and David Carter had begun perusing bowls. Then they announced that the address they’d be occupying – which, for less able detectives, is number 10 on Heddon Street, just off London’s Regent Street – would be a temporary home only. This meant that if I told you about their seaweed butter tagliatelle or their roast pink fir potatoes with smoked cod’s roe, by late autumn you’d have to track down Leach and Carter at their new place in Soho, which will go under a different name.
But my readers are resourceful, and 10 Heddon St sounded promisingly like exemplary pasta, which is something of which we’ll never tire. In a gimmicky restaurant landscape, the queue at Padella in London Bridge still snakes right around the corner half an hour before it opens (such dedication is one reason they announced this week that they’re opening a second branch in Shoreditch in early 2020). On a recent road trip to Berkshire to check out fancy, multi-course fine dining, my happiest meal turned out to be a bowl of spaghetti alla puttanesca at Newbury’s big-hearted, family-run Mio Fiore. Pasta is a complex thing to do well, but when it is done well, it’s restorative.
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