Last Updated on April 11, 2023
Italian-American Hospitality in Mayfair at Sparrow Italia
The flagship restaurant of the Noble 33 Group, Sparrow is a ‘modern coastal Italian restaurant’ with one venue in Los Angeles and one in Mayfair. Opened for just a few months, Sparrow Mayfair occupies a large redbrick building in Avery Row, equidistant from Bond Street and Green Park with the ground floor offering a bar and bistro style dining and the next two floors providing fine dining.
There’s a cigar bar planned for the top floor along with a roof terrace that should be open for summer. Walking in on a wet weekday, there were warm greetings from the restaurant front-of-house team. It’s the kind of place where you feel like a long-lost friend when you first arrive and like a family member by the time you leave.
The third-floor restaurant is light and airy with white table linen set with elegant bronze cutlery. There’s a dumb waiter tucked in the corner so that the staff are not continually negotiating the stairs and a well-stocked bar at on. It’s a space that can be used for private parties and I can imagine it will work very well for that. Laid out for lunch service, at 1 pm the space was buzzing with just a couple of tables free.
While I probably should have indulged in an opening cocktail, I’m trying my best to avoid drinking spirits. Instead, my companion had the Sardinia – a heady mix of nitrogen-infused honeydew pisco, blanco vermouth, italicus, meyer lemon, peychaud’s and eggwhite with a bergamot sphere all served with a flurry of dry ice. For me, a glass of champagne while we checked the menu and nibbled on herb and olive oil infused focaccia.
We picked one crudo and one primi dish to start – hamachi with Amalfi lemon, charred shallot, baby celery and Italian chilli, was delicious and more of a reflection of contemporary tastes – the hamachi or yellowtail is a Pacific fish that has been popularised by Japanese restaurants. Served with a lemony Italian dressing it was reminiscent of the kind of food you might enjoy with an aperol spritz and was light enough to keep those Mayfair ladies happy.
The grilled octopus was a generous portion, perfect for sharing, with baby potatoes and datterini tomatoes on a garlic crema. Octopus is tricky to get right – to tenderise it, you can either slow cook it, brine it, beat it like steak or freeze it. Overdo the process of your choice and you’ll end up without the distinctive meaty texture – underdo it and you’ll serve up rubber. Here it was spot on and the octopus itself had a great char that added a smoky flavour to the whole dish.
My choice of main course was very much led by what I’d spotted arriving at the next-door table. Grilled Branzino (seabass) served on a wooden board, with a dressing of Sicilian pistachio and fresh herbs and with charred lemon. A simple enough offering, but one elevated by careful preparation. I generally prefer to order fish on the bone simply because it’s all too easy to overcook a fillet. Here it was perfectly cooked with firm flakes of white fish under the lightly spiced crust.
We ordered side dishes to share – sauteed spinach and truffle mash. The baby spinach came with olive oil, shavings of garlic, a couple of tomato halves and a chicken stock dressing while the whipped potato mash was laced with Umbrian olive oil and topped with shaved white truffle. Both were excellent – I loved the freshness of the spinach while my companion particularly enjoyed the truffle-laced mash.
His dish of Monkfish Livornaise was a picture on a plate. The cavola nero, fresh tomato and tomato sauce paired beautifully with the generous and well-cooked portion of monkfish and the tiny veraci clams were a delicious complement to the dish. The pretty lacy squid ink cracker added a little textural interest to a dish that tasted just as good.
After individually paired wines (2020 Flor de Uis, Vie de Romans, Friulia and 2020 Château de Garnerot, Bourgogne Côte Chalonnaise) for our starters, we both enjoyed a glass of 2019 Ballot Millot Meursault with our main course, a Côtes de Beaune burgundy that was quite delicious. The wine list at Sparrow is comprehensive, with plenty of options by the glass and with strong coverage of French and Italian premium wines complemented by a few premium American reds. If you enjoy browsing this is an interesting wine list where you’ll find some of the less well-known appellations to try – and a 2009 Château Margaux on offer if you’ve won the lottery.
For dessert, I hesitantly picked the cannoli. I’ve eaten excellent cannoli in Sicily and even tried making my own, under the guidance of a lovely Sicilian chef (‘disastro’). Since then, I’ve very occasionally bought cannoli here. I’m usually disappointed. The shells need to be freshly made – and definitely not ‘lined’ with chocolate. The filling SHOULD be sieved ricotta. Any extra flavourings shouldn’t dominate. At Sparrow the shell was perfect and the filling delicious, albeit if it was really mascarpone mousse, not authentic. No matter – it was fresh! Just a little pistachio and candied blood orange made for a light yet indulgent end to the meal.
My companion meanwhile had opted for the caffè chocolate mousse which was a heady mixture of mousse, praline, coffee parfait and chocolate ice cream. Another stunning plate, every scrap went.
The espresso martini would have doubled as a dessert rather better than as an after-dinner cocktail. A basic espresso martini made with haku vodka was pimped up with borghetti montenegro (coffee liqueur), hazelnut orgeat, spiced demerara, biscotti liqueur and vanilla bean cream bruleéd at the table. But, who minds having double dessert?!
Sparrow would be perfect as somewhere to come for a celebration or a special date and we got the feeling that it is somewhere you’ll always be made to feel welcome. We were particularly impressed by the impeccable yet very friendly service – there’s a real art to getting that right and Sparrow certainly did so. The food was excellent, with fresh seasonal and predominantly Italian ingredients. There was a definite American influence but perhaps that’s not surprising given that the owners of Sparrow in London and Los Angeles are headquartered in California. In any case, this is really somewhere for an International crowd – and rather than compromise on quality Sparrow has opted to showcase the best. So you’ll find Wagyu ribeye and chicken paillard alongside the arancini, veal Milanese and cacio e pepe. The end result? I’m now craving a visit to the Amalfi coast, but in the meanwhile, I’ll happily enjoy the food at Sparrow.
Sparrow Italia
Avery House
1-3 Avery Row
London
W1K 4AJ
Looking for something different? We also recommend Jacuzzi on High Street Kensington, our Restaurant of the Month for March.
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