Video: behind the scenes at Anima e Cuore

Have you managed to eat at Anima e Cuore this year? All we’ve heard from readers since awarding it our #1 new opening of 2014 is how difficult people have found it to get a table. (That includes us: we haven’t made it in since December).

And now the place is closed more often than not – at least it is each time we walk past – with chef-owner Mustapha away all summer in San Sebastian working in a kitchen. Does that mean a few months’ wait before we can again taste the rosemary baba, linguine with ceps or seabass tartare with cucumber sorbet?

Who knows, eh? In the meantime take a peek at this intriguing short film to get a glimpse behind the scenes at Kentish Town’s most famous pocket eatery, which seats just 24 punters.

Shot by documentary-maker Ben Garfield, it’s an engaging, well-edited insight into why Mustapha opened in Kentish Town – and the cafe’s subsequent huge success. “I don’t want to get bigger,’ he concludes, rather sweetly.