Diciannove – And the truffle dinner that did not taste of truffle!

Name: Diciannove Italian Restaurant & Wine Bar

Where: Crowne Plaza Hotel, 19 New Bridge Street, London, EC4V 6DB, 
http://www.diciannove19.com/home/

Cost: We were there to try the Alba white truffle special menu. Dishes ranged from £25 to £38 with a 4-course meal costing £100 per person (excl. drinks).

About: Readers of this blog will perhaps recall my interest in the truffles of Alba, having visited the truffle auction and international fair in Piedmont recently (reviewed here). So my interest was piqued when I heard of Diciannove’s Alba white truffle menu available in London.

Situated on the ground floor of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, a stone's throw from Blackfriars Station, Diciannove is well located for those who have been exploring the sites of the City of London, but during the week, diners are largely business travellers staying at the hotel.

Perhaps due to its location, Diciannove has a generic, corporate feel about it, with a 1990s-type décor which put me in mind of a Weatherspoons in Heathrow Terminal 2. There are red neon signs in the window, grey wall tiles, a lemon yellow bar serving Peroni beer on tap, and seating made from stripy orange, purple and green fabric. It felt bright but soulless.

We attended on a Saturday early evening when the restaurant was around 20% occupied and sadly lacking in atmosphere. Despite this, we were shown to the worst possible table at a dimly lit corner of the restaurant by a fire exit. We asked whether we could be moved to one of the many other vacant tables, and to our embarrassment this seemed to cause consternation requiring the manager to be called! This was not how I envisaged the start of my meal.

What We Ate: Finally sat at one of many available window tables, we tucked into our first starter – beef carpaccio with baby rocket leaves, Parmesan cheese, truffle dressing and white truffle shavings (£25). Made with fillet steak, the beef tasted fresh and of good quality, but was let down by a dire lack of seasoning. I was pleasantly surprised by the generous shavings of white truffle, although like the beef, these had very little if any flavour.

The fresh tagliatelle pasta with Taleggio cheese cream and white truffle (£28) was well cooked with a good bite, and the Taleggio cream sauce was silken and delicious. But continuing a theme, the plentiful truffle shavings again lacked any truffle flavour or aroma. 

Better was the risotto with butter, Parmesan and white truffle (£30). Well made and creamy, simple dishes like this are the perfect match for truffles – and surprisingly this had a good concentration of truffle flavour and went some way to redeem a dinner that had not got off to the best of starts.

As a main course, we were served a beef fillet with mashed potatoes, veal jus and fresh white truffle (£38). Nicely seared, the beef was tender and delectably pink with great depth of flavour. I also loved the smooth and velvety mash it was served with, however, yet again we could hardly detect any truffle flavour in this dish.

For pudding, our waitress recommended the signature dessert of Diciannove - a tiramisu (£7).  The Black Forest Gateaux of the 1990s, I’m still a sucker for a well made tiramisu, but sadly Diciannove’s was far from it. With cream that seemed to have come from an aerosol spray, over-sweetened, and with no detectable Marsala, it left a bad taste in the mouth at the end of a very disappointing meal. 

What We Drank: The wines are exclusively Italian, and the entry-level white is a Trebbianno-Chardonnay blend from Romagna at £24 per bottle, while the red is a Nero d'Avola Legato 2015 from Sicily at £26. 

Asked for a recommendation, the Manager suggested the bottle of house red. This was an every day drinking wine with red and black cherry notes, some spice and a touch of unbalanced acidity on the finish. It seemed out of keeping with the white truffle menu both in style and intensity, and in my opinion overpowered the little flavour the truffle shavings might have had. 

Likes: The risotto was delicious. 

Dislikes: With the exception of the risotto, the other dishes had little or no truffle flavour. For an Alba White Truffle menu, at £100 per person, I would expect more. That tiramisu was the nail in the coffin.

Verdict: With over-priced food in a lacklustre setting, and a truffle menu that did not taste of truffle, Diciannove was disappointing. Not recommended.

Spanish Tapas & Cava Pairing at Copa de Cava

Words & Photography by Marina Benjamin

Name: Copa de Cava

Where: 33 Blackfriars Lane, London, EC4V 6EP,  http://cava.co.uk

Cost: Cava – by the ‘copa’ – from £5. Tapas style plates £4-14. Nibbling menu £15.00 per person. Tasting menu with cava flight is £60.00 per person.

About: Copa de Cava is the new offshoot of the Camino and Bar Pepito group. But it’s very much its own thing – a project that focuses lovingly on small boutique cava makers, regional flavours, the chemistry of oak-barreling and grape blending, and the finer details of the methode champenoise, which involves double fermenting the cava in the bottle in deep underground caves and tunnels for anything up to two years. You might say Copa de Cava is to Cava what the craft ale movement is to beer: it celebrates the local, the particular, and the fiercely proud end of the drinks industry.

Situated in a vaulted basement under the Blackfriars Lane branch of Camino, Copa de Cava is cozy and clubbable, with a comfy armchair and dark wood vibe. On a Thursday night, it was buzzing with a young crowd but also a not-so-young crowd, roughly divided between people who were there merely to sip the golden-hued nectar, and those gamely ordering small plates from the modern menu of ‘deconstructed’ tapas.

What We Ate/Drank: Copa de Cava’s tasting menu is structured around an appealing idea: a flight of cava, with each glass matched to one or two small plates. So tempting was the notion of progressing through 6 glasses of distinctively fermented fizz – from a Rosado to a Semi-seco, and with every kind of Reserva in between – that other options barely registered. 

The Rosada, ripe with floral and strawberry scents, and tasting a bit like a Kir Royale but without the cloyingness, was paired with salty cured and smoked hams and a dish of "pan amb tomaquet" – crusty slivers of toast rubbed in fresh garlic, tomatoes and olive oil. The salt and sweet worked nicely together, even if the cava itself registered a little too high on sugar to qualify as an aperitif in my book.

The next cava in the flight was called Mont Marçal. This was my favourite of the evening. Dry and lemony on the nose and creamy, almost almondy in the mouth, this smooth-tasting beauty had been fermented for 15 months.

It was both delicious and more-ish, and it came with a Spanish omelette in a glass, a tasty mix of crushed potatoes and fried onions topped with a sabayon of egg yolk and onion oil.

The Brut Vilernau that came next couldn’t compete. A blend of traditional cava grapes, Macabeu and Parellada, with just a dash of Chardonnay, it was crisp and appley. Though it was well paired with tangy mussels cooked in tomato and onion, and a sharpish ceviche of stone bass, I’d have happily stuck with the Mont Marçal.

By time our fourth glass of cava arrived, a fine Aria, Segura Viudas Reserva, I was hungry for more than nibbles. And so I really appreciated the lovely aubergine tart that was a bit like a pissaladière, and a delicious dish of tender seared Iberico pork shoulder, bracingly rare in the middle, that came with a rich side of pearl barley risotto, flecked with tiny cubes of smoky chorizo and sprinkled with Manchego snow.

The cheese course was unexceptional – though it was boosted by a Gran Reserva from a small family-owned winery (Reserva de la Familia Juves y Camps). Full bodied and citrusy, with a toasty aftertaste, this cava really sang.

Five glasses of cava was about as much as I could handle, but the sixth glass of Semi-Seco was appealingly sweet and bubbly, and I managed to drink most of it. The dessert was billed as a Crema Catalana, but the restaurant had either run out of them or not made any that evening, and instead served up a glass thimble, containing a single raspberry smothered with sweetened whipped cream.

Likes: The warm atmosphere and friendly service were a real boon, and the staff is genuinely knowledgeable about the different cavas. The food was hit and miss, but the hits were truly delicious. The deconstructed tortilla at £4, and the pork shoulder with pearl barley risotto at £12 were especially good. And at £25 a bottle the Mont Marçal is a must have.

Dislikes: Copa de Cava is more bar than restaurant and with noise levels to match. I’d have preferred a mellower setting in which to savour the tasting menu.

Verdict. I look forward to another visit, when I’ll sit down with a bottle of Mont Marçal and sample some of the other tapas. I hear the steak tartare (£14) is excellent. Recommended.