Early January’s God forsaken weather had us craving comfort food on the daily and on a particularly dismal day we pulled out the big guns, headed for Islington Row and nestled into Angela’s Trattoria.
The interior didn’t exactly envelop us in the cosy way we might have liked. The no-nonsense wooden furniture does the job – no more no less. I suspect the vibe is cosier by night with candles and festoon lighting.
The menu is interesting and almost everything appealed. We launched into bruschetta with roasted peppers, garlic, capers and little mounds of whipped ricotta which tasted much more glorious than our description sounds. It was quite a hefty portion and in truth it would have been a decent lunch on its own. A plate of this with a glass of something chilled would knock spots of most lunches in the city, but in the interest of giving you a more comprehensive view of the place we ordered more. Someone’s got to do it.
Pumpkin arancini with guanciale (dry cured pork cheek) and carbonara sauce had a nice crisp outer with a gooey moreish middle – the comfort food we craved. As was a dish from the specials menu which was a proper winter warmer hailing from the 14th century – Peposo. Essentially a beef stew cooked for hours with red wine, peppercorns and garlic, it was more brilliant than we could ever convey here. Served with crunchy potatoes and sourdough for mopping up the rich sauce, there was so much to love. If it’s still on the menu when you read this we highly recommend.
We also had high hopes for the pasta and ordered ravioli which was wafer thin and stuffed with ricotta and smoked potato served in a parmesan sauce. It wasn’t pretty – all a bit beige – but it was skilfully packed with an intense smoky flavour. However, in our layman’s view, the smokiness of the filling and the saltiness of the parmesan meant we could have done with some zingy dressed greens or a handful of fresh herbs to balance it out a bit.
Dessert would have been a step too far in our quest for comfort, but they all sounded dreamy. We left very happy with our carb fest, promising to be back for dinner very soon.