Rosina is a serene, heavenly-white neighbourhood Italian restaurant just off Wandsworth Common, on the same stretch as the much-celebrated Chez Bruce. It is Adam Byatt’s fifth place – he’s probably best known for Trinity, his Michelin-starred restaurant up the road in Clapham – and, lately, his very good, recipe-driven YouTube channel ran a Road to Rosina series in which he visits suppliers, eats pasta with nonnas and learns peak tiramisu skills from a woman called Pina (more of her tiramisu later). If any neighbourhood can stomach an achingly civilised, Emilia Romagna-influenced, candlelit trattoria where the cloakroom tags are actual Amalfi Coast pebbles engraved with numbers, it is Wandsworth Common, land of the hedge fund/interior design power couple who wouldn’t think twice about sipping a basil gimlet with a plate of melon with culatello di Zibello or gnocco fritto with mortadella. Bella Italia in Bolton this is not.
Rosina’s cocktail bar leans on art deco shapes, with a pale, marble-topped counter and walls covered in David Steen portraits. There’s a small second bar area for those bridging the gap between light dinner and semi-serious drinking, and a larger, linen-tableclothed area for the restaurant proper, with a back room for private dining. Rosina’s intimacy is an optical illusion: the place is as big as a tennis court, and the weekly linen laundry bills alone must make the accountants weep.
The day-to-day cooking is in the hands of Will Bee, previously of Michelin-starred Lita in Marylebone and Paul Ainsworth at No 6 in Padstow, and the menu is hearty, as well as littered with little in-jokes; like all the most promising neighbourhood joints, however, it would take at least five visits before they began to grate. Small plates of fried taleggio, melanzane fritte and smoked sardines on toast give way to a list of pleasingly substantial pastas ranging from caviar linguine at £30 to a staggeringly pocket-friendly cavatelli cacio e pepe at just £8. There is also what’s dubbed as “post-service pasta” (spaghetti with anchovy, chilli and garlic) at £16, which is the first time I’ve seen a restaurant give a glimpse into what its owner eats after hours. More of this, I say. I want cocktail lists that offer “post-service fernet branca plus howling into the abyss about business rates”. Let the light in on the magic.
Hugh, my companion, ordered bruschetta of rabbit livers braised in chianti, and ate them with Lecter-ish lust. Two plump sardines, coated in breadcrumbs and with their little tails sticking out of one end, resembled something out of a cartoon. Carpaccio of wild sea bass came flecked with chilli and amalfi lemon, and doused in the kind of olive oil you hide from house guests: clean, sharp, precise. It was at this point that something shifted for me, from “this is perfectly pleasant” to “holy god, this is really quite special”. The arrival of the ’nduja strozzapreti only confirmed that: hugely simple, but wonderfully layered, with a rich tomato sauce enveloping a nourishing bowl of priest-stranglers.
Risotto bianco, made with Riso Buono carnaroli rice and topped with a bold, sunshine-yellow egg yolk, was rich, but it’s meant to be: risotto bianco is for people who laugh in the face of blood sugar spikes. There is nowhere to hide in a white risotto – it is a sensory bombardment of unctuous gloop – and Rosina’s is wonderful. Although, if I want to squander calories willy-nilly on genuine death row delicacies, it is to their fried potatoes that I might turn instead: tiny baby spuds no bigger than fingernails, roasted, crushed and tossed in herbs and oil. Absolutely remarkable. A hugely generous plate of roast summer vegetables came charred from the grill and drizzled with syrupy grape must saba from Modena. We ate those with perfectly cooked roast turbot.
Around us, Wandsworth Common conducted its typical Saturday business. The tyranny of school fees. The agony of basement excavations. The management of several homes at once, with only one housekeeper directing all the other housekeepers internationally. The true trials of life. These people deserve a good dessert menu, and Rosina offers an embarrassment of teeth-chattering riches. Dreamy, yesteryear-sounding things: orange riccarelli, marzipan fruits, iced cherries and a sharp, classic amalfi lemon tart with blackcurrant leaf ice-cream, which I demolished. And a bowl of Pina’s tiramisu, too, of course, of which we entertained a rather large amount. My congratulations to Pina: hers is a very good recipe: wet, light and stodgy in all the right places.
If this rather sumptuous spot needs anything quite as crass as my feedback, Rosina is a surefire hit. If you’re south of the river and on the lookout for an oasis of calm and fanciness at a range of prices, somewhere you can talk and be heard, Rosina is the perfect woman.
Rosina 35 Bellevue Road, London SW17, 020-8672 5888. Open all week, lunch noon-2.30pm, dinner 5.30-10pm. From about £50 a head à la carte, plus drinks and service
