Assunta Madre

Imported to London from Rome, along with it’s ingredients, Assunta Madre is the new Italian in London with a focus on fish and seafood. As soon as you enter, one sees a lovely fish counter, showing seafood so fresh it is almost still moving. The walls are wooded and the place looks very handsome and masculine, perfect for that long expense paid business lunch or dinner. Trust me, you will want someone to expense this, especially if you want to drink something.

The wine list is by all means incredible, but the average starting price was £85. We are talking for Chianti table wine. We settled on a Lagrein, which was £90 (!!!) and it was certainly wonderful, but when I know I can go to the supermercato in Milano and buy it for 10 Euros, I sort of feel stupid?

We ordered two crudo dishes, as the menu starts off this way, and then we split a main. We also ordered the tuna carpaccio starter, as the waiter talked us into it saying it was their best dish. Then oddly he forgot to bring it! So we, um, didn’t try that dish. Instead of the Tuna, the waiter brought over small salt and pepper prawns on the house. There was not much salt and pepper, just some small good quality prawns tossed in a little olive oil. Maybe a spot of basil at least? Then we had the large Sicilian red prawns, in which you can only get in Italy, and they are incredibly sweet. Almost always eaten raw, these are a true delicacy. They were absolutely sublime. Nothing was done to them, just some very good Tuscan olive oil. In fact, they were not even cleaned. Yes, I am serious. (??…wow.) What you are paying for here obviously is the logistics and quality, but maybe clean the prawns… The prices are so high that it sort of ruins the excitement frankly. I am not one to bugger on about the price of things, especially in very fine restaurants, its just not how I am, and I adore beautiful food and don’t mind to pay for it. But this was really crazy. There were four raw prawns sprinkled with olive oil, uncleaned, and the dish was £30.

We also had the sea bream or orata carpaccio. This was a bit tasteless. Watery and in need of something, anything…there was this odd little cracker with lettuce on top placed in the back of the plate, and it looked really forced. The dish wasn’t bad, but it was just…boring. The red prawns worked in this preparation as they are a delicacy, but the sea bream needs a little push…just the choice of fish was wrong here, I would stick to more meaty and fatty fishes if you are going to serve it WITHOUT anything at all…

Scorfano, or Scorpian fish, is my favorite fish and is found all over the med. It is incredibly ugly- looks like it has a horrible case of acne in fact- and it is bright red to boot. It has this beautiful almost chicken like texture, very firm and meaty. So we ordered the Scorfano of course. It was served on bread with some roasted tomatoes and olives. I think they roasted it, but it was so watery we were convinced it was steamed! It had a mushy texture, nothing like the way I have ever had this fish. It was also very plain, which honestly could be fine for this type of fish, but the way they cooked it threw its normally beautiful texture out the window.

I must make, however, an honorable mention for the incredible espresso at the end. In London this can be tricky, so I am always very pleased to have a nice one.

I have to say this place was kind of disappointing. I was so excited to come, I absolutely love Italy’s Seafood restaurants, and the very clean way of using so little ingredients and of the highest quality. But somehow this place, with its prices and lack of flavor, just didn’t work.