Jamie's Italian by The Naked Chef [Restaurant Review]

Reviewed by The Wild Boar

Canary Wharf isn?t my favourite place in London. After all, it?s the spiritual home of bankers, the very people who have launched the UK into economic depression. Still, it does look like we are climbing slowly out of the recession, as despite climbing unemployment rates of 7.8% (at June 2009), the feeling about town is that big bonuses will be back as both Barclays and HSBC posted big profits earlier this month.

So quite a smart move then for Jamie Oliver to open a new restaurant in Canary Wharf, especially when there are 7,000 hungry people about to feed in such a tiny land area. Titled Jamie?s Italian, this is the fifth branch but his first in London (his flagship restaurant is Fifteen in North London). It only just opened on the 5th of August, but already a few of my friends have sampled it and the PigPig was supposed to have dinner there with 7 other girlfriends, but were told they had to wait an hour for a table (this was on Saturday night with no reservations made) ? popular place.


Since I was around the area, we decided to try the food to see for ourselves just how good the food of this celebrity chef is. On a Thursday night, we arrived at 6pm to find the place pretty near full capacity already. The small terrace area had about 8 tables filled with bankers swigging prosecco and the inside had a really lively atmosphere, enough to drown out the background music most of the time. The furniture seemed quite basic as well ? metal chairs and plain wooden tables with matching slightly tattered looking napkins.




A glass of white trebbiano wine proved to be quite nice actually, very crisp and dry. Unfortunately, there wasn?t any Peroni beer so I had to make do with a Castello (new to me) which was serviceable but not memorable in any way. Although bottled water is on the menu, the waiters by default bring a carafe of tap water to the table, which is a nice touch.


The bread basket had an assortment of Italian bread inside including focaccia, grissini sticks (seemed like normal bread sticks to me) and ? snappy music bread? (reminded me of poppadom without the spices). All in all quite ordinary bread and a bit disappointing it wasn?t delivered warm to the table. However, that was made up by the default delivery of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a little saucer to dip the bread in, the simplest way to really enjoy bread with (although eating bread or toast with foie gras is arguably better). Although the menu states that for an extra £1.50 there is even better olive oil and balsamic, the default inferior quality ones were very nice already to me.


A ?seasonal meat antipasti plank? for two was placed upon two tins (I was a bit bemused by this at first as the waitress put the tins on the table long before the plank arrived and thought it was complimentary for me to take it home with).



Starting with the meats provided, there was salami (okay), mortadella (nice), prosciutto (very nice) and a mystery meat (that?s what it said on the menu, and it was quite nice).


Although not a fan of cheese in general, I quite liked the buffalo mozzarella as it had a refreshingly herby vinaigrette dressing and mozzarella is about as un-cheese-y as you can get. The ?pecorino with amazing chilli jam?, I only managed a nibble, although the PigPig practically inhaled the remains of mine. I was still scarred from the previous pecorino at Sketch as theirs had a very strong sheep?s smell, but the PigPig said this one was quite mild in sheep flavour but still quite a strong cheese. The ?amazing chilli jam? tasted like normal Thai sweet chilli sauce to me, but the wife said it went stunningly well with the cheese.


While walking in, we passed a man hand making fresh home made pasta so the PigPig couldn?t resist ordering a pasta dish and eventually settled on a crab spaghettini (aka angel hair spaghetti). The pasta itself was fresh and had a very home made feel to it (which can be good or bad to you I guess), but it seemed a bit thick for angel hair. The crab itself seemed fresh enough but unfortunately isn?t as sweet as crab in good old Malaysia. Also, the PigPig felt the meat was shredded too thinly and she was expecting bigger chunks. The sauce itself was a tomato based one with plenty of flavourings from anchovy, capers, fennel which I thought was delicious but again the ever-critical PigPig felt it lacked seasoning.



Meanwhile, boring old me chose a rib eye steak. The meat itself seemed pretty decent; British hung for 21 days gave it a good beefy taste. Unfortunately, I had asked for mine rare, but it seemed more medium-well done. Although not tough at all, I was disappointed not to see any pink in the meat. Weirdly, the beef had no seasonings at all but there was salt and pepper on the table so I just added enough to my own taste; I?m unsure if this was done deliberately by the chef to be honest. I had asked for mustard but the waitress forgot and I was too hungry to wait any longer, alas, such is life.


The PigPig was so excited by the ?posh truffle chips insanely good with truffle oil and parmesan, proper posh? on the menu (word for word) that she could only be hugely disappointed when it arrived. Neither of us could smell any truffles lurking about on the chips or indeed any parmesan smell either, which is usually quite noticeable. The chips itself seemed a bit dry to me as well.


By this time we were quite stuffed actually, so we just ordered a tiramisu to share. The tiramisu itself was very moist and generous in the coffee and liquor, just the way I like it. Gratings of orange peel gave it an interesting twist as well. A dollop of extra mascarpone cheese on top was a bit excessive though.


Altogether the bill came to just under £60 for two or £30 each; however, as a place billed for cheap Italian grub, it wasn?t exactly very affordable.

Food - 6.0
Service - 5.0
Atmosphere - 7.0
Value - 5.0

Overall the food was pretty decent and tasty but nothing very fantastic. The buzzing atmosphere was quite fun though, this place definitely managed to build a good vibe. The no-booking-unless-your-party-is-bigger-than-eight policy is just ridiculous though.

Would I eat here again? Maybe in a couple of months when the excitement has died down so I can get a table without queuing for an hour with my banker friends in the cold.

Jamie's Italian
Unit 17
2 Churchill Place
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5RB
Tel: +44(0)20 3002 5252
Official website