Mosaico

This Italian restaurant offers up its fare on London’s Mayfair stretch. Its basement location greets you with a brightly lit bar, which follows round to the main restaurant area. As we were seated at a white linen-clad table, boasting a Mayfair postcode we thought it only right to start our evening with the peachy sparkle of a couple of bellinis before eyeing up the menu.

The dishes on offer at Mosaico are for the most part, typically Italian – as we supped our peachy cocktails, we decided to opt for carpaccio of beef to start, along with a plate full of razor clams. Now, a Mayfair location does hint at the kind of level your price list might start at, but with both starters at around the £11.00 mark, there was a little grumble of disappointment on receiving a rather plain tasting carpaccio and a plate of slightly chewy if not beautifully presented razor clams.

With two more courses to go, we decided that there was no room for disheartenment over the starters and hedged our bets on the crab & pea risotto and the ricotta stuffed courgette flowers, with calamari and prawns. The risotto, though arrestingly green in appearance was creamy and full of flavour, and would probably have been better appreciated by my dining partner, if it hadn’t included the addition of some unadvertised tomatoes. My stuffed courgette flowers meanwhile, were beautifully finished in a light batter and were served with calamari (more batter) and prawns (also in more batter). There is only, I discovered, so much batter you can eat - so with the absence of any salad or non-battered goods to break the dish up, I managed half the plate before fear of actually turning into a piece of batter set in.

Thankfully batter wasn’t featuring on the dessert list and we dived into a lemon sorbet and some good old-fashioned Italian cheesecake, both of which were good choices to end on. With plenty more modestly priced Italian restaurants serving up good Italian food around London, Mosaico might be relying on its well-monied location a little too much when it comes to its price tag. Food here is for the most-part okay, but with main courses frequently commanding £17.00 and upwards, you’d be forgiven for expecting the food to be a little more than average.

Mosaico: 13 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4HJ

Reviewer: Helenka Bednar