We visit Enoteca Turi, a family-run, elegant Italian restaurant in Pimlico.
Previously located in Putney for twenty years, the owners of Enoteca Turi now reside a little further along the river, welcoming a local crowd to this sought after Pimlico restaurant site, for peaceful fine Italian dining.
Charming husband and wife team, Giuseppe and Pamela Turi, run this homely-feeling outfit whose neat white tablecloths give the overall ambience some appropriate elegance.
Tonight we are privy to a menu that is changing almost overnight, resting on the seasonal offerings that the market has to offer – specials include burrata with fresh pea purée, tarallo sugna, almond crumble, and Agostino Recca anchovy – beautifully fresh and well paired with a mineral driven Etna Blanco DOC white wine from Benanti in Sicily.
We choose this with an organic beef tartare that comes with candied lemon, asparagus and a blue cheese from Piedmont that adds a subtle sweetness to the mouth-watering crimson beef that it sits across.
A medley of different risottos and pasta are offered to follow the antipasti, taken from different culinary pockets all over the Italian peninsula.
Try the ravioli filled with Sardinian sheep milk ricotta – a course that pleases so well perhaps thanks to the chef’s own Sardinian heritage.
For our secondi tonight we chose another of the specials – roast breast of guineafowl, confit leg with caramelized figs, grape must and baby beetroot, and a prettily presented dish of baccalà and the most flavourful tomato we have tasted in some time.
These too are matched to specific glasses of wine – in this instance a Valpolicella from Musella and a Soave from Pieropan – helpfully indicated on the menu by a code with which to cross refer to the rest of the wine list – so as not to baffle, and to usefully guide.
The wine list here is enviable – as much of a draw perhaps as the food – with quality, interesting cuvees selected from right across the country.
Italy is home to over 350 grape varieties and the list here offers ample opportunity to dive into many of them.
For produce so fresh it imprints your sensory memory for days after and a genuine family hospitality of Italy, Enoteca Turi’s diners will fare well on both wanderlust and appetite.
If you enjoyed this review of Enoteca Turi, read our guide to the best Italian restaurants in London.
