Quadrato Restaurant

Its always a challenge to recreate the experience of real Italian dining in the UK but at Quadrato, chef Marco Bax has done a fine job of importing his native, northern Italian (and beyond) cooking to the unpromising setting of the Four Seasons Hotel in Canary Wharf. The restaurant is quiet and intimate and typical patrons are, inevitably, the bankers, lawyers and corporate entertainers of Londons new financial centre. Roasted tiger prawns and squid with celery salad, lime hummus, and yoghurt dressing was succulent and flavoursome. Ovenbaked rump of lamb, which was simply presented with horseradish, garden vegetables and rosemary. Risotto mantecato with radicchio and Dolcelatte was also first rate. Mantecato means creamy, and this perfectly cooked risotto, perfumed by the blue cheese, certainly was. I find Italian desserts to so often be triumphs of style over taste, big flouncy things that promise so much and deliver so little. And nothing disappoints like bad Tiramisu. However, Quadratos version, more creamy than alcoholic, was excellent and beautifully presented with a mini pool of chocolate sauce.