Once the restaurant had opened, we headed downstairs; to be greeted by some very carefully thought out Hari activity packs. Supper was saved! Colouring crayons, word searches, little fold-out binoculars, and more. The kids menu had starters of ‘crostone mozzarella with basil’, crudites and calamari (I successfully marketed these as ‘round fish fingers), followed by Penne in tomato and basil sauce, spaghetti with bolognese, pizza margherita and crispy chicken breast with fries. All fairly straightforward kids scran. They didn’t have to wait long until the heaps of spaghetti bolognese arrived, and it was a huge success. The adults menu had a touch of the Belgravia women-who-lunch about it, but I enjoyed the starter of Pepper-seared beef carpaccio with raw artichoke salad and 24-month aged parmesan, followed by seabass with chickpea and clam stew. The tiramisu was something else… an enormous heap of boozy cream, with my choice of Italian liqueur, made beside the table from the ‘tiramisu trolley’. All was delicious, even though I’m not sure the other guests had got the family-friendly brief, as there was a possible discord between a glamorous evening meal and two young children eating at European time. But the staff whisked around us and never made us feel anything other than extremely welcome.
