North London Food & Culture

MUST DO: Ostuni, Highgate

Puglian streetfood in a posh setting. Climb up the hill this weekend to this atmospheric new N6 destination

Traditional food in contemporary surroundings. Photo: PR
Traditional food in contemporary surroundings. Photo: PR

It’s unrecognisable from its previous incarnation as chain pizza restaurant Zizzi. Airy and convincingly Puglian, the owners of Ostuni have even built a tower in the new dining room to allow more light through new sash windows.

Inside it’s all distressed furniture, farming tools and stone adorning the walls. And let’s face it, climbing Highgate West Hill to reach it is more pleasant than a Ryanair flight to southern Italy.

The people behind the transformation are Rob Claassen’s Masseria Group, with a slew of cafés, gastropubs and retail spaces in north London, including The Salusbury and The Chamberlayne in Kensal Rise.

Puglian cooking in some ways represents what Italian food is all about: simplicity. And simplicity is obviously a hit in N6 as, by the time we arrive at 730pm on midweek evening, it’s already well over half full.


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Interior is airy and modern. Photo: PR
Interior is airy and modern. Photo: PR

By 8pm every table is taken and people are turned away. All around us are the kind of well-dressed older women and silver-haired men that you’d expect up in this part of town, the holiday-like thrill similar to Lemonia in Primrose Hill – but with an interior that’s just a little more contemporary.

The menu is fairly long and and typically divided into antipasto, pasta, fornello (the Puglian charcoal-fired oven), pesce, carne and verdure.

A carpaccio of tuna is given a fragrant and unusual bitterness from pink peppercorns, celery and lemon. Orecchiette – “married pasta”, quips the cheeky young waiter, so called because of its “man and woman shape” – comes al dente, the beef feather blade and meatballs deeply meaty, seasoned further by sweet-salty cariocotta.

But here it’s all about the traditional streetfood, bombette Pugliese (£14.50 a person): fresh capocollo (shoulder) of pork, thinly sliced, is wrapped around provolone cheese, then skewered and roasted in the fornello (see centre panel).

We try three: a classic pork and provolone, another with cardoncelli mushroom, and one with paprika and sundried tomato – especially delicious. Less impressive is a piece of lamb neck fillet – but rocket, fennel and radish salad makes up for it.

So the joint is really serving traditional fare, the kind you’d delight at on your two-week break in August. One main is a whole seabream in a salt crust, which the waiter delicately debones, struggling slightly with the finer details. The flesh is tasty and just a tad over opaque.

A salad with shaved white asparagus and truffle oil. Photo; SE
A salad with shaved white asparagus and truffle oil. Photo; SE

The best dish we try is, in fact, from the ‘verdure’ section of the menu: a salad of shaved white asparagus, celeriac and black radish, coupled with pomegranate, pecorino and truffle oil, packs just the right balance of sweet and sour, umami and creaminess, crunch and oil. Wonderful.

Puglian wines are the stuff of memories and – after a hearty Campari spritz aperitif – we settle for a Negroamaro (over Salice or Primitivo). We can’t leave, says the waiter, without trying what he calls the “best tiramisu in London”, which arrives in a mug (slightly incongruously). We scoff the lot.

Ostuni, perched right on top of London, feels like a destination – and, if, like us, you live on the lower slopes of Archway, Tufnell Park or Kentish Town, afterwards it’s a pleasant amble back downhill on a late summer evening.

What is bombette Pugliese? We asked owner Rob Classen

Made from neck of pork. Photo: SE
Bombette is made from neck of pork. Photo: SE

“This type of street food is made from neck of pork. Often the meat is pig crossed with boar so it’s darker than usual, and looks more like beef. It’s sliced, wrapped around cheese, usually provolone, and put on a skewer to roast over wood or charcoal in the oven. Extra flavourings are mushrooms or sundried tomatoes.

The bombetta Pugliese was born in Martina Franca in the Valle d’Itria (next town down from Cisternino) in a butcher’s shop more than 40 years ago. Since then they have been served throughout the south of Puglia as a popular street food. You’ll find them at stalls at carnivals and festivals, but also at restaurants and butchers’ shops.

One place that’s famous for bombette is Cisternino, to the north-west of Brindisi. There are about 12 butcher’s shops here which have little restaurants selling it, served with bread or put into rolls. They have a few tables with gingham tablecloths outside and wine comes in terracotta carafes – very rustic and charming.”

Find Ostuni at 1 Hampstead Lane N6, open till 1030pm daily. Pasta from £8.50, mains from £13. More info on prices and opening times here


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