Manteca – Spitalfields

49-51 Curtain Road,

London

EC2A 3PT

(nearest tube – Liverpool Street)

BY NEAL MARTIN | FEBRUARY 09, 2024

The Food:

Coppa

Pheasant cotoletta with three-cornered leek mayo

Pork and beef meatballs with San Marzano tomato sauce and Parmesan

Tagliatelle al ragù Bolognese

Amarena cherry and almond cake with vanilla gelato

The Wine:

2020 Garesio Langhe Nebbiolo   92

Not so long ago, the weakest link in London’s dining scene was finding top-notch Italian restaurants. There are so many pizzeria chains in London that you can smell melted cheese in the air. But exciting Italian chefs pushing boundaries seemed few and far between. I guess the last high-profile opening was Locanda Locatelli. That was so long ago that Radio One DJ Chris Evans was wooing Billie Piper at the adjacent table. (I am aware those names will mean little to those in the USA, though Piper turned from a teenage pop star to one of the UK’s best actresses.) Thankfully, matters have changed in recent years. There’s Bocca di Lupo, still firing on all cylinders when I took that Martin clan several years ago and probably overdue a Vinous Table. More recently, I visited Brutto in Farringdon, where I enjoyed a delicious porcini tagliatelle shortly before the untimely passing of founder Russell Norman. There’s also Padella in Borough Market, which is more casual, though queues stretch a long way every lunchtime for good reason.

In early 2022, I attended a tasting of Chris and Andrea Mullineux’s wines at an Italian restaurant called Manteca. After stints in Soho and Mayfair, the restaurant had recently settled down in the posher part of Spitalfields, around a 15-minute walk from Liverpool Street Station. It is a joint venture between David Carter of Smokestak and chef Chris Leach, ex-Kitty Fisher’s and Petersham Nurseries. The dishes served that day stuck in my memory. Manteca subsequently gained a reputation as one of the capital’s go-to Italians. So, just before Christmas, I met a friend to check out whether Manteca was as good as I remembered.

Coppa

The restaurant occupies a ground floor and basement, a former Pizza Express. On a drizzly cold December lunchtime, I found it was jam-packed, buzzy, and so noisy that often I had to raise my voice above the din. It’s not a place for a romantic meal to whisper sweet nothings into your lover’s ear. In the basement, you walk past a salumeria where assorted salami, prosciutto and hams are aged, tables here packed closely together. One thing that bothered me was that our coats had to be slung over the chairs, and mine kept sliding off. The theme is nose-to-tail eating, certainly leaning towards meat dishes with an in-house butchery and pasta made on-site. Many of the dishes are designed to be shared. What the dishes might lack in subtlety and presentation is more than compensated for with lip-smacking, deliciously, bold flavors. You’re not going to leave feeling hungry because just about everything on the menu is tempting.

We chose coppa from the salumeria, sliced perfectly thin with just enough fat. Delicious! The next dish was Pheasant cotoletta with three-cornered leek mayo. I was a bit shocked with the claw, which might be off-putting for some, yet the meat itself was delicious in terms of gaminess, perhaps just a tiny bit drier than preferred, the splodge of leek mayo lending welcome tanginess, powerful flavors with real punch. I could have eaten another, maybe just requested slightly less cooked.

Pheasant cotoletta with three-cornered leek mayo

The pork and beef meatballs with San Marzano tomato sauce and Parmesan were a conservative choice, but hey, you just cannot go wrong. These were, again, perfectly cooked and had an oozing flavor.

Pork and beef meatballs with San Marzano tomato sauce and Parmesan

The tagliatelle al ragù Bolognese was another safe choice, but I was in a pasta kind of mood. My only quibble is that I could have done with a bit more on my plate. Maybe looking back, I should thank the kitchen because I still had room for dessert before my tummy said “full”.

Tagliatelle al ragù Bolognese

The Amarena cherry and almond cake with vanilla gelato was to die for. Moist and crumbly, partnered with the gelato, this was a perfect finish to what had been a superb Italian lunch.

Amarena cherry and almond cake with vanilla gelato

The real attraction for wine lovers is a superb list of mainly Italian wines from various wine regions at reasonable prices. One section labeled “down the rabbit hole” has a long list of cultish names. There are a few orange wines for those who don’t get along with sulfur. I chose the 2020 Langhe Nebbiolo from Garesio at around £60 for a bottle, and it was perfect. I don’t mean it was the greatest wine in the world; rather, at that precise moment, if you had come out with a bottle of, say, Sassicaia 1985 on a silk cushion, I might have waved you away and declared that I was perfectly fine, thank you. Garesio is not a producer that I had heard of before, but I will certainly be keeping my eye out. Lively red cherries and wild strawberry commingle with hints of loam on the nose, the palate quite tart in the mouth, racy acidity with a brisk and lively finish that ably handled with the potent flavors on the plate. I exuded joie-de-vivre and adored it from the start until turning the bottle upside down to eke out the final drops.

Manteca does not quite have the same high profile as its peers, yet it was packed to the rafters, probably more of a lunch venue than an evening. It is not pursuing awards or Michelin stars, and all the better for it. Given the escalation in restaurant prices across London, while Manteca is not inexpensive, it is certainly affordable, and the wide choice of wines will please oenophiles. If you find yourself in the City or around Spitalfields, I heartily recommend this Italian. I’ll follow this Vinous Table with another that has been touted by a friend who knows his stuff. Stay tuned.

At last, London has plenty to offer pasta-hounds like myself who desire more than Pizza Express.

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