Zafferano

For background on Zafferano, which opened in 1995, please refer to my most recent review. This was one night before the second national pandemic lockdown, and tables here were well spaced, with plenty of distance between diners. As ever, there was a full a la carte menu as well as, at present, some additional dishes featuring white truffles.

It is hard to resist freshly shaved white truffles in their short season, here being grated at the table over lovely, buttery tagliolini pasta. The tagliolini had flawless texture, and was an excellent vehicle for the heady, earthy aroma of the white truffles (16/20). Linguine with sweet chilli and tomato featured pasta with good texture, quite tender pieces of lobster whose flavour was lifted nicely by the well-controlled sweet chilli flavour (15/20).

Seared tuna with a rocket and cherry tomato salad was impressive. I personally prefer tuna raw, but here the fish was very lightly seared over charcoal, and the smoky hint of charcoal worked really well. The natural fattiness of the fish was balanced by the acidity of the salad dressing, and the seasoning of the fish was precise (16/20).

Cheesecake with sour cherry ice cream was excellent, the texture smooth and with the sourness of the cherry nicely cutting through the richness of the cheesecake (15/20). Passion fruit mousse with coconut sorbet was excellent, the mousse shaped into a rectangle topped with passion fruit sauce (15/20). The bill came to £114 per person. If you had three courses and shared a modest bottle of wine then a typical cost per head would be around £90. Service was very good tonight, attentive and with faultless drinks topping up. It is really good to have Zafferano back on form, with its new head Daniel Camera chef producing some lovely dishes.

Further reviews: 04th Dec 2021 | 31st May 2021 | 10th Oct 2020 | 31st Aug 2020 | 20th Dec 2019 | 07th Sep 2016 | 20th Oct 2014 | 08th May 2013 | 24th Sep 2012