For the first twenty years of my life EVERY dinner involved some variety of boiled, mashed or fried potato. But one of the side effects of the repression of Irish Catholicism by the heathen English was that there was a college in Rome in which many Irish priests were trained. As a result you could learn Italian in some schools. That’s how I got my A at O level, B at A level and 2.1 at university and eventually managed to compromise my virtue.
Italian food has a place close to my heart. It taught me that dinner does not require potato. It never disappoints. The cooks take a pride in what they do. Every Italian I’ve ever known has been a great cook and their mothers have been even better. I must have eaten in a couple of hundred restaurants in Italy and only once remember being disappointed. Even in other parts of Europe an Italian restaurant, run by Italians, always guarantees an acceptable dinner.
That’s what I thought until I went to a restaurant called Italian Graffitti in London’s Wardour Street. Restaurant reviews are a bit off my beaten track but I have to say something about the horrors of this place as a public service warning.
Things started badly when I had to send the wine back because it was more acidic than vinegar. The fish soup, normally one of the most wonderful courses in an Italian restaurant, didn’t taste very fishy and used frozen seafood. The fresh parsley only sharpened the contrast.
The pasta was the worst I’ve had outside Cuba. Ever. Except maybe for Paul Rankin’s cafe in Belfast. If I’d been told it was from a tin I would not have been surprised. A soggy chemically slop. My dining companion’s pizza was worse. A flavourless concoction from the cheapest ingredients. And all the while staring down from the wall was the Italian Norman Wisdom, an actor called Toto who made a career out of not being funny.
I’ve learned that when the staff in a restaurant don’t bother asking if you are enjoying your food it’s because they know what the answer will be. In Italian Graffitti, Wardour Street, they never ask.
Liam redux 
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