Ristorante Frescobaldi

Ristorante Frescobaldi London

15 New Burlington Place Mayfair, London

W1S 2HX

If there's one great thing living in London has to offer, it's the food. I've lived in London for twelve non-consecutive years, and I feel I've barely scratched the surface on some of the best restaurants and bars that the city has to offer. The eateries are truly boundless, and I've taken up a mission to try and munch through them all and report my honest experiences (gaining a few pounds is a risk I'm willing to take on behalf this important investigative journalism series).

This week, I was invited to review the Ristorante Frescobaldi in Mayfair. Italian is probably one of my all-time favourite cuisines in close contest with Mexican, so I was thrilled to try the menu. Before attending, I did have an Italian colleague explain why there were so many course options on the a la carte and what they meant. Antipasti, carpaccio, primi piatti, secondi di pesci, secondi di carne, and contorni all seemed a little excessive for one meal, but as it was it was explained to me, you're only meant to pick a couple.

Having been brought a nice, crisp bottle of house white wine, I started the evenings eating adventure with the grilled calamari with squid ink mayonnaise/sweet and sour onion antipasti. It wasn't the best squid I've ever tried, as I had anticipated it to be a little more grilled and crisp, although the sauce and salad compensated in flavour. My guest had a caprese salad. 

Next came the beef fillet carpaccio with Parmesan and black truffle (n.b: carpaccio dishes are always raw). I wasn't too keen on trying raw beef, but it was surprisingly very tasty, complimented by the shavings of parmesan and black truffle. It had quite a salty taste and a smooth, almost creamy like texture, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even spread a little on the complimentary bread to add some crunch.


I had a variety of choices for mains between the primi piatti (pasta), secondi di pesci (fish) and secondi di carne (meat), but I decided to go for the fish. I chose the dover sole with lemon and butter sauce, while my guest selected the whole corn fed grilled chicken with courgette and chilli. We picked sides (contorni) of mashed potatoes and green beans. I narrowly avoided picking the French fries with black truffle, as I didn't want to overkill the rich truffle flavour having had quite a bit of it in my starter.

The dover sole had a nice, flaky crispy quality, and the sauce was light. The string beans were crunchy, so my guest and I didn't quite manage to get through the pot. I steal quite a few bites of the chicken, doused in it's own sauce, and paired it with my mash potato.


For dessert I selected two small scoops of vanilla and chocolate sorbet, accompanied by a small scoop of lemon gelato. Lemon has always been one of my favourite gelato flavours, especially paired with chocolate, and I'm not exactly sure why. You could tell it was fresh, the lemon was particularly tangy and sour (delicious) and the chocolate/vanilla scoops were full of flavour.


We finished the night with two giant jars of sweets brought to us by the waiters- one brimming with meringue, one with jelly sweets. I could hardly manage half a jelly from fullness, but I did enjoy the meal overall, albeit a few little things that I wasn't too partial to. This might have been down to my meal choice, but can you blame me with the amount of options on the menu!?

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