Continuing my recent spate of better late than never posts, here are some photos from an excellent meal at Sorella a few months back. Thankfully, and rather unusually for a London restaurant, the menu still has several of the dishes that we enjoyed so it’s still relevant! Formerly The Manor, and run by the same folk (Robin Gill & co. of The Dairy), Sorella is a neighbourhood Italian restaurant inspired by Robin’s time spent working at Don Alfonso 1890 on the Amalfi Coast. Dean Parker heads up the kitchen, and makes heavy use of the fantastic produce from the group’s Sussex farm.
We started with a cicchetti trio accompanied by Sorella Americano featuring homemade vermouth. I’m still dreaming of the fried Nocellara olives. As at their other restaurants, a selection of charcuterie and pickles that followed were on point – the 20 month aged prosciutto Marchigiano was a particular highlight. Still in the realm of antipasti, Jersey milk ricotta with black olive and parmesan was greater than the sum of its parts and a beautifully plated Brixham cuttlefish with olive and monksbeard only lasted a few seconds. I should say at this point that we were on the £45 per person chef’s menu – I suggest you do the same.
As the primi pastas started arriving, we moved on to wine with a bottle of Valpolicella Ripasso Bertani 2015 – ever since a trip to Lake Garda and Le Bignele winery a year ago, ripasso is the first thing that I look for on a wine list. It rarely disappoints! Here it was a fine accompaniment to the simply stunning bowls of tagliatelle with pork & nduja ragu, and crab linguine with fennel & chilli. There’s never enough pasta, is there?
Secondi helped us to move on, with some lovely venison and saddleback pork ably supported by charred brassicas, borlotti beans and more. And to finish, we powered through all three available sweet treats – the malted barley affogato with vodka milk is the fanciest espresso martini I’ll ever have. Since our visit, they’ve added a midweek lunchtime pasta & wine deal for £18, but once you take a look at the menu, you’ll struggle to do anything other than go all in. It’s the right choice.
Sorella – www.sorellarestaurant.co.uk
148 Clapham Manor St, SW4 6BX
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P.S. Their cheeky Clapham Common BYOB restaurant, Counter Culture, is currently having great fun changing their “World Tour” menu every couple of months. For September & October they are cooking up all things Caribbean. It’s bound to be marvellous, whatever’s on the menu! Click here for more info.
