Lita: The pursuit of the perfect neighbourhood restaurant
After running a three-Michelin-starred kitchen, one chef has set out to create the ultimate neighbourhood restaurant at Lita in Marylebone, writes Carys Sharkey
What makes the perfect neighbourhood restaurant? Some immediately come to mind: Perilla in Stoke Newington, Camberwell Arms in Camberwell, Chez Bruce in Wandsworth, Saikei in the retail complex side of Greenwich.
All very different restaurants, but ones that would leave a huge hole in their respective parts of London if they ever packed it in. They share a reputation for delivering consistently good cooking and crowdpleasing favourite dishes that are menu mainstays. Add in the ability to get a table without joining a three month waiting list or queuing down the street, and you have the foundations for a great neighbourhood restaurant. And, of course, you need the regulars.
Marylebone, with its looming Victorian terracotta mansion blocks and £50 bunches of flowers, is not a normal neighbourhood. It likes to market itself as Marylebone Village, a distinct wedge of London squeezed between the hoi polloi of Oxford Street and the lung-filling Euston Road. A restaurant here also has to appeal to well-heeled locals and tourists alike. It’s something Kostas Papathanasiou, the new culinary director of Lita, understands well. When Lita first opened two years ago in the site of an old Carluccio’s, it was under chef Luke Ahearne and to a blitz of glowing reviews in the nationals. Ahearne – who guided the restaurant to a Michelin star – left to set up Motorino last year. Now Kostas has stepped in to build Marylebone the ultimate neighbourhood joint (a Michelin-starred and priced-to-its-settings joint that is).
“The neighbourhood aspect is particularly important to me. I think one of the greatest achievements for a restaurant is to become part of people’s lives. Somewhere they return to regularly, whether it’s for a celebration, a dinner with friends or because they feel like having a really good meal,” Kostas says.
Kostas hails from Greece, where growing up “food was always very much part of everyday life”. But as important as tinkling goat bells and sheets of filo pastry were to young Kostas, the “real turning point” was hours spent watching a fresh-faced Jamie Oliver in his Naked Chef days.
“I remember being fascinated by the energy and freedom he brought to cooking. It made food feel exciting, creative and accessible, and I started experimenting at home myself.”
Kostas went on to build a career stacked with fine-dining big hitters. He trained at the three-starred The Fat Duck before moving to The Ledbury. His last role was as executive chef at the triple-Michelin-starred Restaurant Frantzén in Stockholm. But swapping out the kitchens of the best restaurants in the world for a far more low-key neighbourhood spot appealed to Kostas.
“Working in some of the more formal restaurants in my career taught me a huge amount about technique, discipline and consistency. At Lita, I’ve been able to take all of that experience and use it in a different way. For me, refinement doesn’t have to mean formality.”
Lita itself is perhaps one of London’s most aesthetically pleasing restaurants. Dark wooden beams criss-cross the ceiling of a room that spills out onto the street in summer. Plump booths and curving chairs are cast in a golden light. This is the quiet, confident wealth of Marylebone writ large – one reflected in setting and cooking alike. On a visit in peak heatwave summer, a salad of fennel and tomatoes was made rich and sweet with crab, while a second salad of yellow tomatoes sat in a gazpacho style sauce and finished with a healthy slick of olive oil. This is ultimate, generous holiday cooking. A mackerel came charred bitter with a sweet and acidic carrot escabeche, while a dish of brawny monkfish was served with a beurre blanc and chewy pops of clams. Appetite somewhat restricted by pavement-melting heat, the menu brimmed with hugely appealing light dishes, but there are also butter-dense pastas, hearty ragus and steaks on offer for more temperate days to come. A big draw of the all-day dining, elevated neighbourhood bistro concept is the freedom to approach the menu as you like it.
“The menu is designed to give people freedom. You can come in and have a more relaxed meal, order a few dishes to share, or explore the menu in greater depth. I like the idea that there isn’t one correct way to experience the restaurant… it’s somewhere you can come on a Tuesday evening, sit at the bar, share a few dishes and feel completely at home.”
Is there a better criterion for the perfect neighborhood restaurant?