With multiple London restaurants opening every week, it’s a food writer’s dream when one comes along and offers something different. Locatelli, the new opening within The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, did just that when an invite popped into my inbox. The menu, says the press release, is “reflective of the restaurant’s surroundings.” Interesting! I thought, so in I went.

I’m not sure what I was expecting: grand culinary portraits of revered aristocrats made out of Mascarpone, or great towering busts finished off with camp little meringues? The reality was rather more vague: our waitress said the sourdough was inspired by a piece of bread in a famous painting by Caravaggio, but when we Googled it that bread is square and ours was round. As for the rest of the menu, it’s a feasting concept, inspired by how often in paintings there are people sharing food.

Inside The National Gallery’s new Italian restaurant

Hmm. Anyway, the new dining room, which opened in the spring, occupies an empty space in the corner of the first floor of The National Gallery. It looks and feels a bit like a restaurant in an airport lounge. Not many of the tables offer views of the interesting building, but if you look hard in the other direction, depending on where you’re sitting you can see a bit of Trafalgar Square. It’s neither in the thick of it enough to feel buzzy nor separate enough from the gallery to feel like its own destination.

There is at least beauty on the plate. Italian restaurateur Giorgio Locatelli, a presenter on Masterchef Italy, has been awarded two Michelin stars, and to be fair, a parma ham starter with pear and lettuce did look splendid, all pleasing curls of pink flesh contrasting with the slithers of fruit. A squid linguini (the fish was the pasta rather than served on top of it) with a pea jus was elegant as hell, a slow release of fresher and fresher flavour notes piled atop one another.

The menu is classically split into primi pasta plates and secondi mains, so we took one of the first and two of the latter. A ragu with seafood, olive, tomato and pine nut was bang on; firm little twists of dough below a riot of delights from the regions. The pot roast chicken with tomato and black olives came with a wedge of polenta and was superb, and surprisingly light, laying atop an anonymous meat jus that was so mop-uppable that I threatened to order another of the sourdoughs (my guest forbade me for fear of me bringing up the art again).

Cocktails, including the eponymous Giorgio’s Negroni, are excellent, though the concept of celebrating classics from London’s best bartenders feels slightly strange. The menu promotes drinks from some of the capital’s most famous watering holes, including Velvet Bar, Bar Termini and American Bar, but their own well-curated list would have felt more special.

This launches amid a flurry of opulent new Italian restaurants in London. La Môme, a recent launch at the fabulous Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge, has certainly got the vibe, but lacks the imaginative, precision-tooled food. If you want both, head up the National Gallery’s rooftop: The Portrait Gallery Restaurant By Richard Corrigan has splendid views, a splendid atmosphere and some rather splendid food, too.

Go to locatelliatnationalgallery.co.uk

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