There are evenings in London when all it seems to do is rain. You can hear the drops falling one by one from dark grey skies above onto the glistening roads in front that usually mark the end of one day at work but yet only the beginning to the rest of your night; at 7pm it is, after all, still young.
Thankfully there are still places in the throbbing heart of the city that lift the heavy weather and the half-frowns growing across slightly soggy faces and instead delight from the inside out.
On unassuming Denmark Street, normally known for its music shops and window displays full of guitars awaiting their first strum, lies La Giaconda (formerly The Giaconda Dining Room).
On first glance you might disregard it as a nondescript café but once you step through the doors and wander further in, you’ll find a discreet, softly lit room that extols an ambience of quiet sophistication. Those in the know are in for a treat.
Against a bare brick wall at the rear of the restaurant topped with leafy green, silver cutlery dazzles on bright white tablecloths that match the surrounding whitewashed walls.
Tasteful modern art and fabric-focused mosaics combine to make you feel as though you could be a million miles away from the daily grind on a terrace that feels of foreign mid-afternoon sun.
The menu here is simple, often rustic, but most definitely classy. Written in appropriate typewriter-like font, starters include crisped pig’s trotters with hard boiled eggs and leek vinaigrette, moist steak tartare served with chips, cervelle de canut with fresh cheese, herb, green salad and toast, and more simplistic dishes like scrambled eggs with stewed red peppers and jamon.
A healthy number of interesting daily specials exist, including a starter-size juicy squid and chorizo warm bean salad and fresh fish – sea bass – and a mixed grill.
Menu-listed main courses offer a similar array of dishes – we chose venison cheek with red cabbage and roast beetroot and macaroni gratin, and veal sirloin cooked with pumpkin and gnocchi alla Romana.
More adventurous diners will be delighted by veal kidneys and braised tripe – but as with the starters, if you want something easier to wrap your tongue around, you’ll be happily sated here with rib of beef, duck breast or lamb steak.
Following dinner, cheeses are listed alongside puddings, making choices happily more difficult yet – try iced nougat, quince and chestnut trifle or the daily changing tart.
The wine list here might well be set to match the ambience – genuinely interesting, full of personality but not too showy-offy and, above all, understatedly elegant.
Predominantly French and Italian, you’ll also find cheeky numbers like Manuel de la Osa Bianco 2011 – a natural, sexy Spanish white that offers glasses that are powerful and mouth-filling; or a Monte Bernardi Chianti Classico Riserva 2009 (soon to be listed) – something altogether not generic that lifts flavours of the food it happily matches.
Much-lauded La Giaconda wines from Victoria in Australia also feature on the list but are only co-incidental in name. Surveying the room over a glass of such it becomes obvious that the clientèle this place attracts is similarly classy but unpretentious, keen for good food but not fussed about being seen.
Owners Paul and Tracey Merrony, wonderfully genuine, clearly echo this establishment-wide, treating diners as if they were guests on their own piece of outdoors-in. Here the sunshine glows from within. Enjoy.
For further information on La Giaconda, please visit their website or contact your concierge to make a booking.
