Last week I got a call from a certain Nicolo Sandrini of Dinings, who asked if I could bring my man and daughter to London on Wednesday the 17th. Dinings team were to open their second location in London and were inviting “friends and family” to join them and have dinner on the house.  Just for being considered “friends and family” more than 4 years after leaving the company, I’d have walked to London if I had to.  The idea of seeing all the lovely people again was even more appealing than the food, the Jap food heaven that Dinings has been for years. So I didn’t have to beg Florek to take a day off, we went, in pouring rain, back to Scumdon.

Nicolo sent me a video of the restaurant at about 1pm earlier yesterday, still basically a building site, expressed his doubts about the success of the coming evening and also said he wanted to die ( he’s from Verona). 🙂

When we arrived in Knightsbridge, still in pouring rain, the place was still a mess, but there was Nick, my former Chief, the most awesome and knowledgeable man in catering, as well as one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. If he ever asked me to work for him again, I’d shelve my macarons and run back, sadly all the business is either in London or Tel Aviv. There was the other Chief, Masaki, there was Fuku, with his stunning little daughter, I also saw Grace and Alex and Mika, whom I’ve not seen since Ubon.

The food took ages to arrive, but that was understandable. Probably because of the circumstances the food itself was not as mind blowing as I remembered, plus our eel and foie gras sushi roll never materialised( I was dreaming about it for a week). Our wagyu sushi never arrived- that was probably due to the girl who took our order, not sure if she knew what wagyu was. There was lovely fresh and beautifully presented sashimi, shrimps in tempura as light and fab as only these guys can do.  Lovely sake.

We had to pass on dessert, as it was getting close to 9.30 pm and Izzie was showing signs of tiredness.  Going back would be fantastic, dinner in Dinings is nothing but cheap though. Great evening!