Sartoria - Mayfair, London

Sartoria borrows its name from the Italian word for tailor, a homage to its location on Savile Row, where some of the world's best suitmakers have plied their needlework for centuries. But another needle that springs to mind when dining at Sartoria, because it feels like getting hooked up to an IV drip of pure, unadulterated Mayfair. A moment's glance at the dining room reveals all. The carpeting is so ample and plush that it's like you're walking across a forest floor. Cream armchairs and buttonback banquette booths play host to Mayfair's movers and shakers and pretty young things. Bouquets of fresh-cut, ivory white roses bloom along wooden partitions or atop copper shelving. It's old school luxury at its finest, given a contemporary twist, and with a chef that fits the bill so well that he seems custom tailored for the role. 

Francesco Mazzei spent a solid stint in the City as head chef of L'Anima, and has been showered with praise and plaudits for years. His southern Italian cooking is pure elegance ballasted with hearty ingredients and big flavours. From the outset it's apparent that the meal is going to be phenomenal. You could tell even from the selection of focaccia and grissini and the high quality of the olive oil that due diligence had gone into giving guests the best experience possible, a trait that would continue throughout each course. 

Sartoria's steak tartar is a must-try. Hand-cut, coarsely chopped Black Angus beef is intermixed with pickled truffle and anchovies, giving it a dark slatternly edge that feels eminently grown-up. Burrata di Andria followed suit, nestled in an assemblage of torpendino tomatoes, smoked aubergine and basil leaves, served with parmesan tuile and garnished with nasturtium leaves. It was light and elegant, Mazzei avoids the cloying experience of eating a massive orb of the cream-infused mozzarella, a phenomenon that occurs at too many of London's Italian restaurants.

For our primi course we enjoyed spaghetti carbonara, possibly the best we've experienced in Italy or on these shores. The noodles were lashed with cream and salty guanciale, skilfully twisted into a nest with a poached egg perched on top, its creamy yolk binding the dish together. It was carbonara par excellence. Sardinian semolina fregola was immersed in a hearty seafood broth, with an array of shellfish (scallops, mussels, squid and prawns) generously interspersed. Iodine and sophisticated, if you closed your eyes when taking a bite it would be easy to forget that you were landlocked. 

If you weren't feeling hungry, you could skip either the antipasti or the primi and head straight to the secondi, where the dishes are defined by plenitude. The veal Milanese for two looked beautiful, but we opted instead for the tagliata and the fritto misto. The former was sliced into manageable strips, served atop a bed of puré di patati (mash) and drenched in a rich gravy. This was excellent when complemented by a tin of courgette fries, which again, were some of the best we've had in London. The fritto misto was enormous. A veritable fishermen's haul was laid in front of us - a tall teetering mound of golden crisp fish, vegetables and prawns without a hint of oil or grease.

We were at capacity at that point but struggled to abstain from the desserts, which remix regional classics like montebianco and tiramisu. The marsala zabaglione looked especially alluring, which is a telling sign that Sartoria is a restaurant worthy of a return visit. 

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