Best the Boot has to offer

I THOUGHT I had discovered this restaurant until I saw Sir Bob Geldof and friends sitting two tables away from where we were.
Fiore caught my eye when walking in St James’s Street I noticed the most beautiful flower arrangement on the front window of this otherwise demure establishment.
It is simple, if anything a bit ‘grey’ but again the ingenious flower arrangements give it a sense of opulence. For the tables a dainty beautiful fresh flower enclosed within a small thin vase. In fact the rest of the decoration at the table is provided by the beautifully presented dishes.
Chef Umberto Vezzoli has been in the business for 25 years.
His experience in Italy and worldwide accolades including a Michelin star have given him the perfect background to enter the London eating scene. Ristorante Fiore opened early this year and everything is tasteful about it.
The pretty menus have the prices in words instead of figures, so was it a twenty pound veal cutlet or a veal cutlet costing £20? The latter.
I arrived early to give myself the opportunity to inspect the menu. My kir was delicious but the smallest I have ever seen (£7). A complementary larger one materialised soon after I made a comment about the size. For dinner my friend, Count Tolstoy-Miloslavsky and I decided not to go for the menu degustazione (£45 or £65 with wine) featuring a fennel and orange salad with braised tuna, a tortello with a cream of sweet peppers, a warm sea bass carpaccio or braised beef ‘Rovato’ and soft chocolate soufflé with extra virgin olive oil ice-cream.
The selected wine accompanying the starter is Franciacorta Brut from Lombardia, Cabreo la Pietra from Toscana for the pasta dish, a Merlot from Trentino for the main course and a Moscato Rosa from Alto Adige for the dessert.
Instead we ordered the fagottino tiepido di salmone, spinaci e uovo in camicia (£7.50) – the spinach and poached egg were a perfect complement to the finely sliced salmon.
The piccolo timballo di verza ripieno di melanzane con fonduta al Taleggio (£7) was a beautifully presented Savoy cabbage timbale filled with aubergines in Taleggio cheese sauce. To follow Andrei had the filetto di orata spadellato con patate arrosto e cipolle al fumetto di coriandolo (£15) – a mouth-watering pan-fried seabream fillet with delicious roast potatoes and onions with coriander fumette.
I had the gallinella di mare al forno con funghi e verza spadellate (£14.50). Fabulous presentation of the oven-baked red snapper fillet on a bed of pan-fried mushrooms and Savoy cabbage).
Their excellent dry house white wine Regaleali Bianco was a bargain at £19. Highly recommended.
We then shared the Mela Calvados (£8) and decided to finish our delicious dinner with a cheese plate (£10) and insalata rucola – we had to try their special extra virgin olive oil “Classe T” £5.
The service was attentive to the point of being effusive. The bill for £136.15 included a 12.5 per cent service charge.

Ristorante Fiore
33 St James’s Street,
SW1. 020 7930 7100 Fax 020 7930 4070