B A R B I C A N L I F E Restaurant REVIEWS Three for lunch
We have been busy trying out new restaurants and attempting to keep up to date with what’s going on in the general area as readers may have noted from our coverage of the three Shard restaurants earlier in the magazine. Now follow some reviews and news on some of the more down to earth establishments, in being located at ground level or below, with the editor trying two for lunch and Stephanie Ross one for a family Sunday brunch
Luce e Limoni – a slice of Sicily on Gray’s Inn Road
A
number of Barbican residents, and presumably also those who work in and around the
diamond district, speak highly of Fabrizio restaurant on St Cross Street, just off Leather Lane, a small, unpretentious
family owned
establishment which offers excellent Mediterranean-influenced food at reasonable prices and seems decently busy at lunchtime and in the evenings. It also seems to attract very complimentary reviews from the main London restaurant websites and papers like the Evening Standard as well as from individual diners. Now Fabrizio Zafarana, the eponymous owner/chef, has launched out and opened a second restaurant called Luce e Limoni in the stretch of Gray’s Inn Road just to the north of Clerkenwell Road, and in keeping with his Sicilian heritage the new venue specialises in Sicilian cooking - even more so than his original. Indeed the new restaurant is very
much an homage to Fabrizio’s roots. As he puts it: “Our food is th trip wh
ich ch
brough undreds of years of foreign influence, wh
common point: th t h
ich we try to bring in our
restaurant by offering revisited traditional dish
es giving fresh sensations to our
customers.” Those heading to Luce e Limoni (light and lemons to summon up a vision of Sicily in the name) and looking for the dishes one normally gets at Italian restaurants might be disappointed – but not for long as the Sicilian take on food rivals that of any other region of Italy and
22 e story of a long
anges over time, but with one e tradition. In Sicily, trade
there are enough similarities to make you feel at home.. We ate there at lunchtime on one of
those hot, sultry days we were blessed, or cursed, with in July and the fact that the whole frontage of the restaurant can be opened out onto the fairly busy street was a positive – giving the feeling of alfresco
eating, but indoors. While Fabrizio himself apparently usually oversees his initial restaurant, but pays regular visits to the new one to make sure everything is to his satisfaction, Luce e Limoni is largely managed by his charming wife, Rebeca. Our waitress was attentive and extremely helpful – I let her choose my
Luce e Limoni is an attractive new restaurant on Grays Inn Road serving mostly Sicilian food
Rabbit stuffed with mushrooms on a bed of mashed celeriac with green beans.
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