What can you tell us about Rotorino?
It's best known as the new restaurant from Stevie Parle, who's also behind the very successful Dock Kitchen. But it's also part wine bar, with a list by Ruth Spivey, best known for Street Vin at Hawker House and her Wine Car Boot events. The whole thing is backed by The Rushmore Group's Jonathan Downey - who most recently brought us Hawker House.
And what kind of food can we expect?
Although nominally an Italian restaurant, its remit is to serve up Italian dishes made with the best of British produce.
And where is it?
In Dalston, about five minutes walk down the Kingsland Road from Dalston Junction. It's this location which is making Rotorino stand out. The area is certainly changing rapidly, with wine bars, shops, bars and pop ups appearing all over. However, Rotorino sticks out form the crowd by being, for lack of a better phrase, a grown up restaurant. Opening something like this here certainly has its risks, but it's much more likely to be a ground-breaker.
If it's so popular - will I ever get a table?
Thankfully, the entire wine bar area at the front is kept back for walk-ins and this includes a long sharing table too. You can order food on any of these tables so it's well worth popping by early (7ish is ideal, we'd say) to grab something there.
Where should I meet for a drink first?
There are plenty of bars nearby, most notably Farr's School of Dancing, Dead Doll's Club and Ruby's which is a little further down the road. The area's changing rapidly - so also keep an eye out for the upcoming Liquor Store pop-up. However, as there's little quite like Rotorino in the immediate area, we think a glass of wine in the bar here is a good way to kick things off.
And where should I sit?
In the restaurant section at the back, we think the booths, seating four, are the ones to request if you can. The room itself is one of the best designed we've seen recently, a perfectly judged mix of that East Village unfinished look given some East London swank.
And what should I eat?
Why not wander though as much of the menu as you can? This is a place to come in a group too, so you can take in as much of the menu as possible (there are a few sharing dishes that our table of two wasn't able to stretch to).
Of what we ate, we particularly liked:
In the fried section - both the deep fried chickpea fritters and sage leaves as well as the deep fried pig's head terrine were excellent. Not exactly health food, but well worth ordering first if you want something to snack on while fighting over who gets what from the rest of the menu.
- The sea bream carpaccio with squashed datterinin tomato and marjoram was a particularly fine carpaccio, the best we've had since the Murano a few week's back (and that was on our best ever list).
- The pea gnudi was bloody marvellous. We shared this dish and that was a huge mistake - we could have sat snacking on those alone all night. A must-order, and one that makes us want to revisit the pasta section more thoroughly on our next visit.
- The middle white pork chop marinated in myrtle, lemon peel and lemon leaf - a beautifully cooked piece of meat that went well with the (again, a must-order) fried potatoes with rosemary and garlic.
We've been hearing good things about the hanger steak too and expect more must-have dishes to appear in future weeks. Our only caveat is that we'd like to see the dessert menu take a few more risks that the rest of the menu offers, but otherwise we think it'll be hard to choose poorly whatever you have.
And what should we drink?
With as much of a focus on wine as food - Rotorino is very much pitched as equal wine-bar and restaurant - with both Stevie's and Ruth's "picks" highlighted on blackboards. Wines start at £20 a bottle/£3.50 a glass - up to around £85 for a magnum of red if you're feeling particularly flush. It's a good sized list without being impenetrable - around 50 wines on a one-page wine list.
If you're dithering go with Ruth's advice as we were very happy with her recommended bottle of Veccia Modena Lambrusco for £32 which happily matched with everything on the menu. It'll be the drink of the summer so make sure you try it here.
Overall thoughts?
We've known that this restaurant was opening for quite some time, but it still has the feeling of appearing fully-formed out of nowhere. It's hands-down one of the best looking restaurants we've seen in a while, the staff were lovely, and the food and wine were of a standard the rest of the area will have to work hard to keep up with. It's going to be one of the best openings of 2014 and will have a huge influence on Dalston. So yes, you'll want to check it out and have an opinion.
Rotorino, 434 Kingsland Rd, London E8 4AA. Find out more about Rotorino.
Prices were correct at time of writing. Hot Dinners ate as guests of Rotorino (but we weren't aware of this until we asked for the bill).
