May 2025 - Food

The Bulgari Hotel is one of the new wave of ultra-luxury hotels in London, but unlike some others, it is as discreet as it is elegant. It also has a commitment to the Italian heritage of the brand, as we discovered when taking the most spectacular afternoon tea there. But it does not shout about its presence, and the same has flowed through into the restaurant, which is an offshoot of the excellent Manhattan Italian-American restaurant Scarpetta.

The Bulgari and Sette are only a few moment’s walk from Knightsbridge station, around the corner from Zuma. It has its own private entrance on a small side street, but you can also enter through the elegant lobby and Bulgari Lounge, first to the bar area and then through to the restaurant proper.

The room itself is quite old-school: muted tones, beautiful rectangular chandelier-style punctuating the ceiling, a wine alcove at the rear and generously sized and spaced tables that will allow for a plutocrat to discuss business in perfect privacy. We had one of the corner booth tables which afforded a panoramic view across the restaurant in the glow of evening candlelight.

Now an Italian-American restaurant is not going to mess up cocktails and the martinis – one vesper and my own pure, extremely dry and with a twist were pretty much perfect. Score one to Sette.

The very friendly and disarmingly old school staff gave the place another air of the elegance of yesteryear. They reminded me of those grand old-school Italian hotels where the click of heel on marble and the flash of a velvet jacket was a signal that you could relax into elegance. A bit like the San Domenico Palace in Taormina used to be before some fool decided that everything had to be made over into the tedious international language of taste(lessness) and made it into a pastiche art deco monstrosity.

I digress, but Sette is that sort of place. It’s old school, and somewhere you can let the mind wander. They take time here and do things right, and I suspect that’s just fine with the clientele who are rich enough never to need to be in a hurry.

Which does however illustrate what I don’t think it is, and that’s an Italian American restaurant. Really it’s an absolutely top-end Italian restaurant, and that’s a different thing. The food tells the story. To start I had a quite perfect trio of crudo: salmon, yellowtail tuna and sea bass. All with suitable spices and other flavour-enhancing ingredients, but nothing to distract from a superbly fresh offering of delicious raw fish. I could eat this all day and every day.

Main courses were sublime. I had Risotto Milanese with Ossobuco. This is as classic an Italian dish as it gets, and they nailed it. Thick with wine and cheese the arborio rice was just at the al dente point and a generous helping of saffron allowed it to light up the table. The ossobuco itself had been carved and dressed before serving and was presented as a mound of succulent perfect meat in the middle of the plate. The trouble is I’m now going to want ossobuco always served this way, and I know that’s not happening.