I really like the Big Mamma group. I like that I can be in most places in Europe and know what I’m getting. I like that I can book under my name and they’ll be a negroni waiting for me, and I like that the privilege doesn’t just extend to piss poor food bloggers like me but also regulars like my mother-in-law who very much enjoys the treatment she gets whether in Birmingham, London, or quite recently, two days running in Madrid. I like how they understand that service is as important as food for a nice night out, and I like how they stepped in and saved dessert at our wedding on two weeks’ notice and charged us hardly anything to do so. By and large you can be in any Big Mamma restaurant and the menu will be roughly the same stylistically and the food of a similar quality. Apart from Gloria in Dublin, that is. There is something special about the food coming out of the kitchen in Gloria.
We arrived straight from a taxi to Gloria, fresh from a rather dreamy morning laid on at Guinness from a man who I had a chance encounter with two weeks prior at Tayer & Elementary. Someone I have never met before takes our jackets and wishes us a happy anniversary before someone I do know runs over and gives us both a big hug and congratulates me on making it to a year. The room is typically gorgeous; Milan imagined by people who believe Milan itself lacks confidence. The old bank bones remain underneath, but they’ve been dressed up enthusiastically. Scarlet chandeliers hover overhead, glowing with the menace of luxury cruise ships. Every inch appears to have been considered, embroidered, gilded, lacquered, burnished or otherwise interfered with. Waiting on our table in the centre of the room is both champagne and negroni. Given at no point did I mention the occasion on the booking, it is a lovely touch from a company who always does the service right.
You don’t dine in Gloria. You pose in it, sip in it, flirt in it and occasionally remember to eat. Anywhere else and the food would be the supporting cast, yet here it is brilliant. So brilliant that I send numerous texts telling various people about it. It’s undeniably Big Mamma but with a head chef who has one of those palates where there isn’t a grain of salt amiss and everything is peak flavour. The guy is a superstar, and I would later tell him that, along with his boss, and eventually his boss’s boss. The tarte tatin of Datterini tomatoes is beautifully caramelised with light, flaky pastry and a cream full of salty parmesan funk. Sophie gets the tempura shrimp, with lightly cooked crustacean, crudites and a marie rose sauce that manages the difficult trick of being luxurious and alert at the same time. Both are simple and yet superbly done.
It gets better. A lasagna lay horizontal to showcase the layers. What makes it is that each of the components are made as good as they can be, from the bechamel kissed with nutmeg, to the tomato sauce that is bold and heavily seasoned, to the sumptuous veal and beef ragu that is well rounded and as good as any ragu I can remember. And chicken, perhaps the best dish of them all, grilled and dressed in a peppery, rich, and spicy chunky olive and sun dried tomato sauce. I think we had spuds but by now I’m deep in a mixture of chianti, more negroni, and, for some reason, sambuca.
Dessert is an off menu sgropino, in the way that off menu should be, with me asking if they have lemon sorbet and vodka, and requesting the two together. I’m slowly convincing myself it is the best dessert for two people who don’t really like dessert. The bill is chunky at £310, but we did go big on the wine choice, and with the aforementioned champagne and negroni not appearing on the paper. I’d pay it all again, in fact I do often, because Big Mamma gives me that old feeling of being in a restaurant to enjoy myself instead of being there to cast a critical eye over everything. I wax lyrical to Lara – one of the groups true superstars – about the chef and she brings him upstairs so I can tell him myself. He is handsome, modest, and humble, right up to the point that he tells me that his ambition is to win the groups first Michelin star. How serious the guide would take to Big Mamma is another discussion entirely, but I have certainly eaten at worse Italian restaurants adorned by them.
9/10
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