At Tortello, a polished Italian restaurant beside Hyde Park, pasta is made by hand each day in a variety of glorious iterations.
The restaurant’s autumn menu showcases the pleasures of the season: pumpkin, wild mushrooms, slow-cooked meat, Parmigiano and enough truffle to perfume the journey home. However, it is the filled pasta that provides the most convincing reason to visit.
The ambience
Tortello sits within the Royal Lancaster London, although its separate entrance on Lancaster Terrace helps it feel more like an independent restaurant than a hotel dining room.
Inside, the multilevel space is undeniably beautiful. Olive trees are threaded with fairy lights, while sage green walls and terracotta stools give the room a warm, restful palette. Lemons appear among the floral arrangements and on tables, while tan lampshades patterned with pomegranates add another playful Mediterranean flourish.
Even the staff wear sage green aprons. It is less rustic neighbourhood trattoria than carefully art-directed Italian holiday, but the result is more inviting than sterile. A handsome bar runs along one side of the room, making it equally suited to a date, a long lunch or an extremely strategic bowl of pasta before getting a train from Paddington.
The food
Grilled king prawns arrive first, their shells slipping away without resistance. The flesh is sweet and smoky, sharpened by a vinegary salsa verde and thin slivers of chilli. They could take a fraction more salt, but a generous squeeze of lemon pulls the whole dish sharply into focus.
Next, comes the Orkney crab tortelli, its ink-dark parcels sit in a pale, buttery sauce streaked with green herb oil, creating as much contrast on the plate as along the tastebuds. The fresh pasta is beautifully thin and tender, yielding almost without pressure, while the filling is soft, silky and unmistakably crabby. A clean, sea-bright salinity cuts through all that butter. It is an indulgent dish, but nevertheless well-judged where it needs to be.
The seasonal black truffle and ricotta tortelli is richer still. Delicate pasta encloses a creamy filling before being glossed with truffle butter and finished with freshly grated winter truffle. The aroma is deep, earthy and pungent, without flattening the ricotta beneath it. We mop up every trace of sauce. London is not short of expensive truffle pasta, but this is a serious contender for one of its best.
Pappardelle with wild boar ragù and cacio ricotta proves that Tortello is equally capable when it leaves the daintier pasta parcels behind. Think of it as bolognese’s wilder, more autumnal cousin. The meat is deeply savoury , but the complex sauce remains balanced and light, which makes it easy to polish off. A dish demanded by cold evenings and rapidly disappearing daylight, the comfot-factor is strong.
By this point, the lesson is obvious: at Tortello, pasta is the move.
The sea bass is less successful. The fish itself is delicate and well cooked, accompanied by mussels and wilted greens, but the seasoning is a little heavy-handed. Salt overwhelms some of the subtler flavours, while the mussels feel placed alongside the dish rather than fully worked into it. Nothing is disastrous, but after the precision of the tortelli and the ragú it feels noticeably less refined. Finally, an affogato makes a simple and satisfying finish, the hot coffee melting smoothly into cold, creamy gelato.
The verdict
Tortello may describe itself as a neighbourhood trattoria, although its glossy dining room and Hyde Park hotel setting place it firmly at the smarter end of that category. Fortunately, the substance largely matches the styling.
There is genuine skill in the kitchen’s pasta-making, particularly in the almost weightless crab tortelli and the gorgeously autumnal black truffle version. The sea bass needs a lighter hand, but it is the exception in a meal defined by thoughtful sauces, excellent fillings and pasta that deserves to be the main event.
Come for the room, perhaps, but order the tortelli. That is where Tortello becomes memorable.
The details
Where: Tortello, Lancaster Terrace, London W2 2TY
Cuisine: Italian
Opening hours: Daily, 11.30am to 10pm
Website: tortello.com