It’s weird being sat in Spingere. It’s my first time and yet it’s not; it’s a building I could navigate in the dark; one whose floorboards I know all too well. It used to be Laghi’s, my most regular of regulars, a place I’d come and sit at the bar in and have a negroni and a bowl of pasta. One that I’d treat like my own home by walking down stairs to the pasta kitchen and say hello to whoever was rolling it out to the correct thickness. My dear friend Luca opened it and ultimately closed it and I miss it dearly. Karam, a chef who worked here under Luca, Leo, Stu, and Paddy has taken it over, added some panelling and made it his own. Spingere translates directly as ‘Push’. It feels kind of apt.
I’m here with Luca (and my wife, mustn’t forget her) for a catch-up in the very building I first met him in all those years ago. We drink brusk negroni made by someone who knows and understands them, and big glasses of bloody primitivo. The food is still Italian – it’s what chef knows and does well – with a touch of Stu Deeley’s worldly cheekiness. There’s rectangular blocks of breaded and deep fried aubergine with a dip of whipped ricotta full of funk, and textbook bruschetta with cherry tomatoes and a salsa verde packed with garlic heat. Best of all is a dainty plate of beef carpaccio dressed in a flurry of grated truffle, cured yolk, and cheese, with little more than a lick of excellent olive oil and a few pickled shallot rings for lubrication.
We all take pasta for mains despite the temptation of porcetta on the menu. The portions are too large but Luca (and his mother) have taught chef well. As far as fresh pasta goes this is up there with the very best in the city. From the twisted curves of caserecce with a full-on sauce of ‘nduja and Gorgonzola, to the spaghetti with langoustine, prawns, and heady bisque of the crustacean carcasses. Luca gets the tortellini of pigs head with green beans and broth made of (mostly) chicken feet. It’s old Bologna with its foot, quite literally, in Asia, with a broth that’s saline and bright with aromats. It’s properly sensational. We share two desserts between three; a less-than-conventional plantain one with the most beautiful of just-set panna cotta, and a quite excellent tiramisu. Luca pays, but I’m guessing that it was circa forty quid a head.
What next for Spingere? Quite a bit apparently. We get to speak briefly to one of the new owners who tell us that they have plans to make the restaurant more visible from the road, and to make the fresh pasta more visible to everyone. There is talk of pizza, but only when they figure out how to do it on their terms. Part of me was reluctant to eat here given my connection to its old shell but I’m really glad I did. What was once Laghi’s is now Spingere. They already have a certain style of their own, it’s now time to push on with that.
8/10
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