Greetings! Welcome to another food blog! YAY! Hopefully we can expect some of this:
“I perused the menu.”
“Oooh, this sausage is cooked to perfection.”
“The asparagus had a real depth of flavour.”
“I’m not paying for this so I’m not actually going to tell you it was BANG AVERAGE.”
As a top, London foodie influencer I receive emails about soft launches of restaurants. I don’t really like the phrase ‘soft launch’ as it makes me think of Donald Trump wearing a sailor hat, trying to thumb his flaccid penis into you having forgotten to take his viagra.
Restaurant soft launches are basically a chance for them to make sure everything works before officially opening their doors to the public. Usually they will only charge 50% for food, so it’s a good chance to go somewhere you might not normally visit.
With this in mind, a few weeks ago I found myself in Belgravia. ME! In Belgravia, with my reputation (my reputation as someone really fucking cool who used to live in East London).
Basically I really like Italian food these days, so saw a soft launch for a new Italian place there and thought: “well, surely it’ll be good because posh people have great taste right?”
WRONG
Il Pampero is the restaurant in the Hari Hotel, which is owned by Harry Styles of One Direction fame (this is included for SEO purposes).
I ordered a Negroni to start, which was a pretty good Negroni. It came on a little bit of wood with a bit of fake, old newspaper on. Quirky, but bloody annoying having to peel it from the bottom of your glass every time you took a sip. I only had like four sips though as I’m an absolute, bloody, raging LAD.
My starter of sweetbreads with mushrooms was pretty good. I’d give it a good solid 7/10. Here’s a picture of it.
My main was less good. Saffron risotto with veal ragu and crumbled bone marrow.
The veal ragu and crumbled bone marrow could have been literally anything in the whole wide world and you wouldn’t have tasted it over the massively over-powering saffron.
If I hadn’t have been here on the soft launch that risotto would have cost £19.50. Imagine! Fortunately they took it off the bill so I didn’t have to weep.
Two boys out of five.
Foodie Boys 