6th March 2007
Be less disappointed
Just take a moment to think about how many times you've been faintly disappointed by Italian food. All those last-minute 'oh, let's just go here for a pizza' meals, where the groaning platter of toppings suggested by the menu turns out to be three pieces of dry pepperoni and a handful of briny olives as hard as gravel.
Or the times when, against your better judgement, you order an old familiar pasta dish, thinking that they'll probably do it better than you can at home because they're Italian, right? Bound to know a trick or two. And your carbonara is limp and greasy, and you sulk, and say something silly like 'this wouldn't be allowed in Tuscany', and wish you'd gone for a hamburger instead.
Italian food, then, is often less sumptuous, warming, comforting and filling than it is in your hungry imagination. Which is why Malletti is worth going to.
It doesn't look like much - it isn't much - a tiny sliver of ludicrously overpriced Soho real estate, barely wide enough for the constant queue of hungry folk who gather daily at its door.
It only sells three things - pasta, pizza and sandwiches. You see them through the window as you queue, tell em what you want, they heat it up and then boot you out. A handful of brave types sometimes try to brave the three stools and eat in, but I don't recommend it. I also don't recommend that you try talking on your mobile whilst ordering - they tale pride on punishing such rudeness.
What I do recommend is the food - creamy tortellini of roasted peppers, pizza laden with ham and broccoli, crisp focaccia with mortadella and cheese. It's one of those places where there isn't a single thing on display you won't want to eat. It might look expensive - enough slices of pizza to make a reasonably large whole costs 7, the pastas/risottos a more reasonable 4.50, but it tastes absolutely brilliant, the way you always hope this food will and so rarely does.
So go. And as you curse the cheek-chucking, pepper-flourishing stereotype who flogged you your last bad Italian meal, give thanks that someone is doing it properly.
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