As evidenced by Tuesday’s review of Luciano, Marco Pierre White has not given up on quality restaurants. In recent times, however, to seems generally to have shied away from the higher levels of cuisine – notoriously a hard way of making money – towards more obviously commercial ventures. Thus he has been involved with a sandwich business (with the eponymous earl), Wheelers seafood, and Planet Hollywood. None of these associations seems to have made great waves. Perhaps this new Italian chain, Frankie’s – a tie up with jockey Frankie Dettori – will turn out to be the Big One?
The aspirations of the menu at this new Chiswick opening are quite modest. Like the Knightsbridge original, it offers selections of pizza and pasta alongside more substantial dishes from ‘Frankie’s Grill’. Mirrored walls, monochrome tiled floor and rotating mirror globes – likewise translated from SW1 – seek to create a glamorous tone. But while such glitz may seem natural round Harrods, it is at odds with this leafier locale (and might seem downright odd outside the capital or the other major cities).
Staff – though striving to charm – have a punctilliousness which, like the decor, sits uneasily with the venture’s informal leanings and fuels something of an identity crisis. Perhaps Michelin-driven ideas die hard? All doubts would be swept away if the place knocked out classic dishes at reasonable prices. Our meal, though, suggests that success is spasmodic at best. Pizzas were OK but no more; a rocket salad dull; calamari fine; tiramisu quite good. And prices are no give-away.
It’s too early to say how many punters will take to this ‘affordable glamour’ and how many others it will leave cold. Marco and Frankie’s horse, though, will have to work on its form it it’s to become a real favourite.
