Restaurants Archives - It Must Be Wine O'clock

Engawa – fine Japanese dining in the heart of London

Tucked away in a charming little courtyard just a stone’s throw from Piccadilly Circus is Engawa, one of London’s finest Japanese restaurants.

As you step into the restaurant to the traditional welcome greeting of ‘Irasshaimase!’, you already feel in the zone, anticipating the tasty delights to come.

Engawa is a small, intimate restaurant offering a range of Japanese dishes including Kobe beef, sushi and sashimi, which are all served to please the eye as well as the taste buds.

We went for lunch and chose the two-tiered hakozen bento box for which Engawa is renowned. The assorted selection of fourteen appetisers and seasonal dishes were all carefully prepared and beautifully presented, and were quite simply delicious. These included edamame topped with sea salt and lemon, tuna, salmon and toro sashimi, wagyu and tempura, as well as vegetable dishes, and it also came with miso soup.

It was also a great opportunity to have a Japanese koshu wine to accompany our lunch. The Château Mercian Iwasaki 2019 Koshu wine from Yamanashi Prefecture was the perfect pairing. This is a dry white wine with refreshing acidity, with aromas of vanilla and yuzu, and flavours of citrus fruit and nuts.

With attentive service, a cosy atmosphere and excellent, reasonably-priced food, Engawa offers a real taste of home for Japanese diners and a brilliant demonstration of the wonderful range of Japanese food for non-Japanese.

Engawa Restaurant

If you like Italian food, you’ll love Bologna … and La Drogheria della Rosa

It is difficult not to eat great Italian food in Bologna, in the heart of Emilia-Romagna, Italy’s gastronomical centre. With its tortellini, prosciutto, parmesan cheese and mortadella, not to mention wines made from local grape varieties such as Sangiovese, Lambrusco and Pignoletto, it is perhaps little wonder the city is nicknamed ‘La Grassa’, the fat one.

At aperitivo time in Bologna, head for the Quadrilatero neighbourhood just off the Piazza Maggiore; here you will find plenty of little bars and food shops offering a relaxing drink and a simple but tasty snack of local cheese and cured meats. At some point during your stay, you should try tortellini in broth (tortellini in brodo). These tiny parcels of meat-filled pasta served in a delicious broth are one of Bologna’s best known dishes and can be found all over the city.

But for la crème de la crème, La Drogheria della Rosa is the place to go for a delicious lunch or dinner and try the restaurant’s simple local dishes in a cosy, informal atmosphere. Set in an old pharmacy with cluttered shelves crammed with phials, jars and other old-fashioned pharmaceutical paraphernalia, La Drogheria della Rosa offers an ever-changing menu of homemade pasta, meat and vegetable dishes that the staff will explain to you. And to drink: a selection of local wines of course!

Emanuele, the owner, is a great host, chatting to guests, pouring the wine and making everyone feel welcome. A charming place in the heart of Bologna.

A great place to eat – just off Rome’s Piazza Navona

Tucked away in a little street just off the Piazza Navona is one of Rome’s little gems – L’Osteria dé Memmo. It’s nothing fancy or flashy, just good old Italian food at a fair price and with friendly, professional service and a cosy atmosphere. It was recommended by an Italian friend and we always make a beeline for this restaurant whenever we are in Rome. You’ll be hard pressed to find more perfectly cooked pasta dishes, and with the array of appetisers, meat and fish dishes, not to mention the tasty desserts, there is something for everyone’s tastes amongst Memmo’s cornucopia of delights. Finding it may test your map reading skills, but it is definitely worth it when you get there!

In Beethoven’s footsteps

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 – the Pastoral – is a firm favourite. I’m happy to listen to it anytime, anywhere. But where better to listen to it than in Vienna, and what’s more on the Beethoven Walk (Beethovengang) in the Viennese suburb of Nussdorf?

A couple of years ago my wife and I took the tram from the centre of the city to this pretty neighbourhood and then strolled along the Beethovengang as we listened to the Pastoral Symphony on our headphones. This is where the great composer himself used to walk, gaining inspiration for this symphony from the woods, vineyards and open countryside around him, and walking in his footsteps brought an entirely new perspective to his music.

And to cap it all, we then enjoyed a simple meal and a glass of wine in the ‘Heurige‘ (wine tavern) in nearby Heiligenstadt which Beethoven himself used to frequent when he lived for a time in the village, and where he worked on his Symphony No.9. Like Beethoven’s music, it was simply delightful.

For more details of wine-focussed activities in and around Vienna, see here

Kryivka – the underground restaurant where you need a password to get in

We stumbled on Kryivka restaurant, which translates as ‘underground bunker’, by mistake. After a pleasant morning’s sightseeing in Lviv, western Ukraine’s historical and cultural gem, my wife and I were actually looking for the entrance to a popular coffee shop on the city’s Market Square when we joined what we assumed was the queue to get in.

‘Slava Ukraini!’ (‘Glory to Ukraine!’) said the young man behind us, tapping me on the shoulder. It turned out he was called Andriy and sensing my confusion from the look on my face, he explained it was the password to get in. Still not really any the wiser (a password?), we waited in front of the non-descript door until it was our turn, then dutifully knocked as we had seen the others before us do.

We were greeted by a grouchy-looking soldier with a machine gun at the ready, demanding the password, which we duly gave. Satisfied that we weren’t undesirables or enemy spies, the guard let us in and immediately offered us a shot of honey vodka. He then directed us downstairs and it became clear that it was not quite the coffee shop we were expecting.

Kryivka is a sub-terranean pub-restaurant set up to represent a Ukrainian partisans’ bunker from the Second World War; the underground maze of corridors and tunnels is a relic of the past – dim lights, spartan tables, with military uniforms and other paraphernalia on the walls. A friendly waiter – in military garb of course – walked us to a table and brought a menu.

Andriy, the young man from the queue earlier, came over and helpfully recommended a few of the traditional no-frills dishes that partisans back in the day used to eat to sustain themselves in the fight – kholodets (jellied chicken), pivmetra kovbasa (half a metre of sausage) and varenyky (dumplings stuffed with potatoes and onion, or minced meat). Thinking we would struggle with half a metre, we decided to pass on the sausage but the kholodets and varenyky were surprisingly tasty and came served on a soldier’s tin plate.

Kryivka is part of a group of trendy ‘concept restaurants’ in Lviv which aim to combine the eccentric with the wholesome. This explains the earlier charade at the entrance. This particular venue is one of the most popular and it was certainly full of customers – mainly a fairly young, hip crowd – when we were there.

We thanked Andriy for his help and made our way out through the courtyard at the rear. We couldn’t resist a mock ride on the military motorcycle with sidecar, and trying out the anti-aircraft gun on the roof. Although we didn’t quite get our coffee and cake, we did have a quick introduction to what life was like as a WWII partisan and enjoyed one of the most unusual, and entertaining, experiences of our trip.

Fine dining in St Petersburg – Russia’s window to the West

My wife and I never tire of visiting St Petersburg. Russia’s pre-revolutionary capital has all the ingredients to make history come alive, with its splendid churches and cathedrals, its stunning palaces and the many wonders of the Hermitage Museum.

As you walk in the footsteps of the tsars, and the artists, writers and musicians whose rich legacy can be found all over the city, there is so much to explore in Russia’s window to the west, including the Winter Palace, St Isaac’s Cathedral, and Nevsky Prospekt. Not to mention the city’s rich culinary heritage.

For a memorable Russian meal in historic surroundings, the restaurant Russian Ampir in Stroganoff Palace, one of the city’s oldest palaces, located just around the corner from the Winter Palace is second to none.

The Beef filet Stroganoff, prepared according to an original Stroganoff family recipe, is to die for, and the secret tour of the hidden rooms and vaults offered at the end of the meal is not to be missed – it’s a real step back into Russia’s imperial past.