Jay-Z and I have a lot in common: we’re both black, we’re both phenomenally successful musicians and we both love Italian food. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Where we differ is that I love to cook and eat Italian, but Jay-Z prefers to get his in restaurants.
He and Beyoncé are regularly spotted eating Italian cuisine, once leaving a $500 tip after a $1,200 meal at Nello’s, a high-end Italian restaurant, and were photographed trying local delicacies in Florence. As the Guardian refused to pay for a £1,000 meal or a trip to Florence, I decided instead to try to recreate three of my favourite restaurant meals in my own kitchen.
My first target is the velvet crab and cream sauce with spaghetti at Lanterna in Scarborough, a meal so good that, two years later, I still occasionally dream about it. Unfortunately, I discover that velvet crabs can be ordered in two ways: cooked or alive, the first of which defeats the point and the second of which sounds far too much effort.
Not to be deterred, I move on to the turnip tops pasta at Li Veli in London’s Covent Garden, now sadly off the menu. Having attempted it myself, I suspect that may be because, while it is easy enough to make – turnip leaves, olive oil, breadcrumbs, some spices and anchovies if you’re feeling fancy – you are left up to your ears in leftover turnips.
More successful, and without any leftovers, is my attempt to imitate the wild boar ragù at my local Italian restaurant, Trattoria Da Luigi, far and away the loveliest restaurant in my London neighbourhood. It turns out that this involves one very easy step – adapting Marcella Hazan’s ragù recipe by substituting the word “beef” for the word “boar” – and one very difficult one: actually finding wild boar mince. My local butcher has to explain once again that, while they can turn around speciality orders, they need a better run-up than two days before my deadline. So I turn to the internet and, after a lot of false dawns, the good people at Sillfield Farm Foods deliver me 500g of wild boar for £9. The resulting ragù is delicious but scarcely cheaper than that available at Luigi’s, which only ratchets up my fear that one day it will be replaced by a pop-up restaurant or an estate agent – the inevitable destiny of all my local restaurants.
