Ten years ago this summer, an unassuming ice cream parlour – or so it looked to the passer-by – opened on the scruffy lower reaches of Kentish Town Road.
Locals soon realised that the ambitions of humble Calabrian-born founder, Mustapha Mouflih, and his partner-in-crime Alessandro Altoni, were not to be underestimated.
The aim, he said at the time, was for it to “feel like home. We wanted the chef to come to your table himself, tell you what we found at the market today, then go to the kitchen and cook each dish.”
And it’s been thrilling punters ever since, its simple approach belying sensational regional Italian cooking. Not a surprise when you learn that Mouflih and his cheffy gang had prior experience at Mayfair establishments like Four Seasons Park Lane, Le Gavroche, Ilia and Cecconi. They just got tired, he also said in 2014, of serving “a clique of billionaires”.
In the height of Covid, the diminutive cafe reopened in summer 2020 as a space several times its former size, a cavernous warren of connected dining rooms. There’s now a characterful deli, and handful of tables at the front, dimly-lit with pendant lighting, with a brighter rear dining room, and garden terrace, behind.
We admit we hadn’t eaten at the venue for a few years, and when we returned last week, its airy, contemporary dining room was nearly empty, understandable on election night of course, coupled with the fact that this is now a long-established institution.
Happily it’s still BYOB – for a fiver – although the winelist is actually reasonably priced, with bottles starting at £19. As for the famous chalkboard menu? It’s still passed around table-to-table and old faves like rosemary beef tartare and scallops gratin are present and correct , as well as noticeably more expensive secondi: steak is £30, with other mains £24-30. Such is the cost of living crisis.
Donate £2 to KentishtownerBut carb-lovers can relax, too: the primi lists homemade pastas all within the £16-20 bracket, and it was these that we homed in on, after a starter of delicate tuna tartare with avocado – another signature dish – topped with a citrus sorbet and a charcoal pane carasau.
First up, the ink-black tagliolini, infused with sweet cherry tomatoes and crowned with charred octopus packed flavour, although the fishy leg itself wasn’t quite as butter-soft to the knife as we’d hoped. Superior, in fact, was the bowl of silken pappardelle with melt-in-the-mouth umami-packed duck ragu.
Around us, in a room slightly too bright, the polite chatter of couples soon swelled, rather than the wine-swilling rowdy diners of yesteryear, when it was housed in its slither of a candle-lit dining room.
But the bill, including corkage, was £58.85: not bad these days. This is a rare dining institution that, along with Bintang, Patron and the Bull & Last, deserves its enduring success.
Anima e Cuore, 127 Kentish Town Rd, London NW1 8PB
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