Matthew Steeples explores the menu at the recently opened South Kensington hotspot Iddu
44 Harrington Road in South Kensington was the scene of an accident in 2003 when a bus crashed through the window of the Bagatelle patisserie. Next door, the Ronnie Wood owned Harrington Club reportedly caused continual chaos for residents between 2000 and 2003, but now with the arrival of a stylish yet simple café-restaurant named Iddu, order and civilisation have returned to a corner of London favoured most especially by the French.
Iddu, owned by one of London’s most connected Italian transplants, Luca Del Bono, opened in late February 2015 and has fast become a favourite of both foodies and locals due to the high quality of the food and drink on offer and its welcoming staff. Managed by Andrea Bassi, it is open from 7.30am to 10pm daily and can be summed up as part café, part restaurant and part coffee-wine bar.
With a menu focused on Sicilian dishes, sharing plates and aperitivo, Iddu’s style of cooking is enthusiastically described as typical of the “kind of food one would expect in any Italian grandmother’s home” by Bassi. Drawing on Del Bono’s Sicilian roots, the lunch and dinner offering includes such dishes as a salad of Aeolian raw vegetables (£8), caponata alla Sicilana (£10.50) and grilled veal cotoletta alla Palermintana (£14).
The natural breakfast selection, meanwhile, ranges in price from £6 to £8.50 and includes such dishes as organic porridge with Sicilian ham (£6) and egg white frittata with asparagus and ricotta cheese (£8.50); grilled panini are priced between £4.50 and £7.
Iddu’s drinks list is primarily Sicilian in terms of its inspiration also. A bottle of house red or white is priced at just £22 whilst a superb cocktail list includes a punchy “Stromboli” Negroni made with Ophir gin at £7.50.
Iddu, 44 Harrington Road, London, SW7 3ND. Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7589 1991.
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