Cantinetta, 162-164 Lower Richmond Road, Putney

Pity the poor folk who live in Putney. With all the worst trappings of complacent suburbia and none of the benefits, it’s a miserable and clumsy nowhere - Kingston without the shopping.* 

On the other hand, it now boasts a very fine restaurant. Cantinetta is the latest in a seemingly endless list of middle-to-high end Italian eateries that have opened in London in the past year or two. After years of fruitless effort, during which Cafe Uno and Bella Pasta passed for Italian restaurants, the English finally seem to be working out how to do it. Even in Putney.

Not that there’s anything particularly English about Cantinetta, beyond its unfortunate location on the Lower Richmond Road (note: this is an extremely long road, and if you look for number 162-164 on Google Maps, it directs you to a main artery about two miles from the restaurant). It’s another Locatelli influenced offering, following hot on the heels of the very-slightly-underwhelming Tinello. Chef Federico Turri is a Locatelli alumnus.

We went for Sunday lunch during the soft opening, meaning the food was half price. I know it’s not particularly good practice to review restaurants during soft openings (they’re designed to let the place iron out any problems before charging full price), but until I can afford not to worry about the prices, I’m going to continue taking advantage of the offers. In any event, the two restaurants I’ve reviewed in this way (Hawksmoor is the other) were both so good as to render the softness of their openings irrelevant.

We shared a light, perky potted rabbit for starter. Served with thick, crunchy bruschette, it struck a beautiful balance between fatty, melting meat and a citrusy salsa verde. 

After that, we went for borlotti bean and mussels soup (me) and squash ravioli with pork ragu (Cute Letts). The soup was rich and warming, with excellent borlotti hovering somewhere between firm and melting. The squash ravioli dazzled, the sweet smoothness of their filling offset by the earthy pork ragu and textural delights of precise pasta: near perfection, and the dish of a very good day. 

Tagliata di manzo (in this case, a huge hunk of ribeye) came with deep fried polenta that looked and felt like Michelin-starred hash browns, and a thick nebbiolo sauce that ended up being slightly too rich for me. A beautiful dish, nonetheless. We added courgette fries (for a change), which were among the best I’ve ever eaten. Again though, Cute Letts picked the pick. Monkfish with globe artichoke and sprightly salsa verde was magnificent, with just enough tang from the salsa to complement the luxurious swimmer. 

However, as Meat Loaf didn’t say, one out of three ain’t bad – I nailed the dessert selection, choosing sebadas filled with pecorino and drenched in honey. Sebadas are a kind of deep fried ravioli, and this dish was unlike anything I’ve ever tasted: warm, sweet and sticky, but with an undertone of frisky cheese to boost the ensemble.

Cute Letts did pretty well too. Her panna cotta was drenched in very nice grappa - a coup for this chubby, creamy dish. 

A nice bottle of Sicilian Borgo Selene worked well for £14.50.

Non-soft opening prices would have seen this lot come in at about £40 per person. For this quality, that’s a serious bargain. The restaurant is airy, with a bar serving booze and tiraditi (little snacks, unavailable when we attended) that is sure to make it a local favourite. If it wasn’t in Putney, I’d be there all the time.

Phil Letts’ take: 8/10

*I don’t know Putney all that well, so if this assessment is entirely inaccurate, I’m sorry. It just always seems like a place that thinks it’s very posh, sophisticated and smart, contrary to all available evidence. 

Supperclubs, trademarks and the London Underground

Many of you reading this will know Ms Marmite Lover. I expect several of you have been to The Underground Restaurant, her Kilburn supper club. I attended before I was a food blogger, and had a memorable day, chiefly because of the sweary biscuits she served. As the self-proclaimed “pioneer of supper clubs in this country,” Ms Marmite Lover is pretty well known. 

The Underground Restaurant launched in January 2009, achieving remarkable success extremely quickly. Supper clubs in London are two-a-penny these days, but Ms Marmite Lover (real name, Kerstin Rodgers) claims to have laid much of the initial groundwork for the current boom. From her home in Kilburn, she puts on dinners, lunches, afternoon teas, themed nights and recently, an Underground market, charging up to £50 pounds for the privilege. While she may not yet be making mega-bucks, it’s clear that what started as part-hobby, part-philosophical statement, is now a brand, generating revenue and a significant media profile for its founder.

Unfortunately for her, success means publicity, and with publicity comes scrutiny. Last week, the Evening Standard ran a story about Transport for London’s challenge to a trademark application for ‘The Underground Restaurant’, filed last year. Ms Marmite Lover confirms that she filed the application, and that TfL have sent her no less than three ‘cease and desist’ letters, demanding that she change the name or shut the restaurant down, on the grounds that she is infringing the company’s ‘Underground’ trademark.

The story met with howls of outrage from the foodie community, some of them justified, many of them not. Despite what some people have claimed, this has absolutely nothing to do with trying to ‘copyright’ the word ‘underground’ (that would be impossible), nor is it accurate to say that TfL has tried to ‘patent’ the word (patents cover inventions, not words). This piece is an attempt to look at the issue slightly more realistically, though I’m not a trademark lawyer, and none of what follows should be taken as legal advice of any sort.

TfL owns a trademark for the word ‘Underground’, registered in Class 43 for food services, restaurant booking services and the like – essentially, it’s the European-approved category for restaurants, catering and so on. This trademark entitles the owner to protection from anyone imitating it, passing off their services as the owner’s, gaining benefit by creating a false association with the existing brand, creating confusion about the origin of services or otherwise diluting the value of the initial mark. 

That said, for a trademark to be usefully enforceable, the owner must normally be able to demonstrate that it is being put to use in the category for which it was registered, and that someone else’s use of it is confusing or damaging in some way. Effectively, if challenged, TfL might be called upon to show that it not only provides some kind of food or restaurant service, but that it is branded with the Underground mark. I asked TfL if they have any such services, but didn’t get a reply.

Now, without going into whether ‘The Underground Restaurant’ actually infringes TfL’s mark – it would require more information than is available to someone not involved in the case – it is fairly clear why TfL are pursuing it. Any large corporation has a responsibility to its stakeholders (even if they are taxpayers) to protect its intellectual property. It’s sound commercial policy to stop people gaining benefit from a brand name that they don’t own. And while Ms Marmite Lover calls TfL’s own trademark “frivolous” (in as far as it covers food), for the moment, the trademark exists.

Does ‘The Underground Restaurant’ gain benefit from a false association with the London Underground? Probably not, but if the question is even worth asking, then it’s probably worthwhile for TfL to investigate it. Does ‘The Underground Restaurant’ create confusion among customers as to the origin of its goods and possibly dilute the TfL brand? Probably not, though Ms Marmite Lover’s house is not far from the Kilburn Underground station, so it’s easy to see why you might ask the question.

The more pertinent question might be whether it’s worth TfL investing money in tackling what is still a pretty small business. Many people would say no - it’s a clear waste of money that TfL could usefully spend on providing a useable transport service. Personally, I have quite a bit of sympathy for that view. But that said, it won’t cost TfL very much to send cease and desist letters, and the company knows that it has deeper pockets than its opponent. It might well be making a sensible calculation that it can nip a potential problem in the bud by throwing its weight around now. It’s not very nice, admittedly, but neither is it illegal. In fact, it’s probably good business.

So given the situation, where does Ms Marmite Lover go from here? Well, she could close down. That’s probably not an option. She could change the name of the restaurant (TfL have apparently suggested ‘Kilburn Underground’, though that doesn’t seem to solve the problem). That seems unlikely. She could wait it out and see whether TfL feels strongly enough to take her to court. The problem is, that could mean ending up in court. Finally, the two parties could reach an agreement.

“I have had reasonable discussions on the phone with TfL's lawyers. They said I'm sure we can come to an arrangement if you use a different font,” Ms Marmite Lover says. “They changed their mind. I'm hoping to come to an agreement with them,”

In all likelihood, they will come to an agreement. It’s in no one’s interests for the case to go to court. And if there’s a slight irony in a proud anti-establishment figure wanting to register a trademark in the first place, then no matter. As Ms Marmite Lover says, she’s “protecting [her] brand.” TfL would say the same, no doubt.

Tiny Robot, 78 Westbourne Grove

It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside. I’m kind of hungry, and I’m outside. I don’t have much money, but if I did, I’d probably go to The Ledbury instead. They say Saturday night’s alright for fighting. Luckily it’s Friday, which is good for dinner. And while there are many familiar, delicious restaurants around Westbourne Grove, it’s no sacrifice to try a new one. So hold me closer, Tiny Robot, even if your name is silly. 

The first problem is the menu. It’s all well and good having a set of dishes listed under the word ‘Balls’, but it’s a challenge to work out how you’re supposed to choose your meal, given that half the menu costs about £3.50 while several dishes cost upwards of £15. Do you have starters? Lots of small things? A mix? Are the dishes suitable for sharing? We didn’t know. Nobody told us, nobody showed us. We asked the waitress, and apparently it’s normal to order lots of things and share them, giant T-bone steaks at £28 notwithstanding.

 

We had arancini and a couple of sliders, some whitebait, a rocket salad (or arugula, as the American-language menu would have it), and a piece of giant sausage with lentils.

The arancini were tasty enough, though smaller than you might like. Their spinach and parmesan risotto filling was comforting, while a side of herb aioli added a nice kick. We had one pork and one beef slider (meatballs in little burger buns). Mine, beef with ‘spicy tomato’ sauce, was pretty average, its sauce neither especially spicy nor even particularly tomatoey. Cute Letts' pork slider fared little better with its creamy parmesan topping. Neither of us had the guts to try the special turkey and cranberry option.

Now, I’m a rocket man, and in a salad with shallots and a super-light vinaigrette, it’s an excellent leaf. Our salad was just right, an enchanted moment in an otherwise mediocre ensemble. But even the most rocket man of rocket men might have found the whitebait dish a little odd. I don’t have any particular objection to serving whitebait mixed up with rocket, but in this instance, the whitebait was too soggy and threatened to meld with the leaves at any moment. A disappointing experience only partially offset by some delicious aioli (this time, without herbs). 

But oh, lawdy mama, the giant sausage and lentils were good. A generous slice of cotechino Modena, a lovely, fatty sausage, sat lustily on a bed of lentils, crispy pancetta, carrots and onions. It was marvellous.

For dessert, we shared a baked Alaska, principally because I haven’t eaten one since I was about five, and they’re bloody lovely. This was particularly good, a ‘pieces finally fit’ kind of moment. Fluffy meringue sat atop rich pistachio ice-cream on a bed of boozy panettone. It was far too big for two, and you can’t order it for one, but I didn’t care. Six mouthfuls made me so sugared-up I felt like a wide-eyed wanderer. Otherwise, I’d have certainly finished it. 

The bill came in about £50 for two, including a couple of beers and a glass of wine. Tiny Robot is ok, but you can do a lot better in this area, and I don’t just mean at The Ledbury. Would I go again? Well, I think it’s gonna be a long long time.

Phil Letts’ take: 5/10

p.s. Apologies for the scarcity of photos. It was too dark. The sun had gone down on me.