There are some truly perverse architectural sights in the City of London. Walk down Bishopsgate and teeny-tiny St Ethelburga’s church looks ridiculously quaint in front of the towering Gherkin – it’s one example of how in the Square Mile, history and modernity clash thrillingly. If this sort of architectural nerdery is for you, go to 19-21 Billiter Street near Bank, home to a new restaurant called Campanelle. It serves excellent Italian food, as well as another helping of that ‘Omg the City’s buildings are amazing!’ energy.
Campanelle occupies one of Billiter Street’s few surviving Victorian properties. Decimated by bombing in WWII, the road now comprises a roll-call of shiny newbuilds, but The London Shipping Exchange’s HQ, opened in 1865, is a survivor. Spandrels on the building’s exterior celebrate the people and products brought in on ships from around the world. Walk down the road then turn back and gawp at it after a few glasses of wine: it’s weird how these buildings, once formidable bastions of Empire, look like dainty toy houses next to their hulking modern counterpoints.
Restaurateur Ninai Zarach spent a year negotiating with conservation teams about what she can and cannot do to the Grade II-listed building, which still retains its beautiful ornate ceilings and flooring. One of the challenges was removing a central 18th century oak staircase during the refit to ensure it didn’t get accidentally damaged by builders.
Campanelle restaurant: we ate a thwacking great kilogramme of meat with a lovely pinot noir
The carbonara on the bottom left, surrounded by prawns, bruscetta, seafood pasta and aged meat
Art Deco-style seating in emerald green, sea blue and burnt orange feels a tad conventional, taking away attention from the majesty of the building, which is the real star of the show. That said, there are some interesting new features, including a 44-seater “all weather dining terrace” for autumn, “where guests will be invited to dine ‘al fresco’ throughout the year,” according to the press release.
This ‘outdoor’ seating is actually in an atrium behind the restaurant that doubles as the lobby of some new offices. Dining in an office foyer obviously sounds terrible, but Zarach, behind other Italian restaurants Manicomio and Canto Corvino, has made this look fairly convincingly like somewhere worth dining. I’m not sure how an ‘al fresco’ meal out there, surrounded by bouquets of flowers, will feel come November when the rain is pummelling down on the glass above your head, but I want to find out.
I go in on a Monday night when Zarach, who describes herself as ‘Dorian-Persian’, bounds over. She immediately lambasts the Labour government for not being pro business enough; she might not have gone ahead had she known Starmer would get in, she says, but here we are. We’re seated upstairs by the open kitchen, which feels strangely placed because the more decorative fixtures and fittings are on the ground floor, but presumably logistics got in the way.
Chef Fausto Rojas and his team have conjured the Italian classics in all their indulgent majesty. The menu is split into antipasti, pasta and primi plates from the charcoal grill. We kick off with a perfectly springy focaccia Romana, and follow with a chaser of langoustine arancini filled with great fleshy shards of meat. Crab salad with celeriac and salty fingers showcased more of Rojas’ talent for straightforward plating.
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Campanelle means bell in Italian, and adorably the Romans make pasta shapes with the same name. Rojas and his team mould little bell shapes out of dough to serve with the dangerously good carbonara. It’s wildly rich: the sort of dish you really should never eat under any circumstances, but as Damien Hirst says about cigarettes, it tastes good because you know it’s bad.
The Bistecca alla Fiorentina is one of the oldest Tuscan steak dishes and is made up of one half sirloin and the other fillet. It comes as a thwacking great one kilogramme serving and worked well paired with glasses of pinot noir. Cocktails are also imaginative and confidently shaken.
Campanelle has the makings of a City institution like 1 Lombard Street, and feels like surprisingly well-priced opulence (there are main dishes for under £30). It’s also worth the visit to spend an evening in another of the Square Mile’s brilliantly historic buildings. It’ll be interesting to see what the incoming office workers think of The Truman Show-style ‘outdoor’ seating area. Anyway, enough pondering: I’m off to shovel more carbonara.
19-21 Billiter St, EC3M 2RY, call 0203 745 0909 or visit the website to book
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