Fresh and buzzy a brilliant new restaurant just happens to be in Jay's neighbourhood he's not being lazy
161 Bellenden Road, London SE15 (020 3302 8200). Meal for two, including wine and service: £80
I did resist going to Artusi. It's in Peckham, near where I live, and I do hate being accused of laziness. Then I read the menu. It was full of things I wanted to eat: big reliable ingredients treated with the minimum of fuss. Salted anchovies were involved. If salted anchovies are involved it's generally a good thing. The restaurant had been described to me as an Italian and, in as much as there was a pasta and a risotto dish on the short menu, I could see this was so. But it read as something else: it was nowness in a little over a dozen dishes.
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