Campanelle, London EC3: ‘A great illustration of the pros of working from home’ - restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

A corporate-facing and not-very-Italian-at-all restaurant

There’s an enormous new “Italian” restaurant just a skip and a jump from the City of London, close to where the country’s money is looked after. But the multi-floored Campanelle doesn’t deign to open at weekends (for now, anyway), because, well, why bother? Who would go? Mind you, on the Friday lunchtime when I stepped into this elegant, all-day brasserie in a Grade II-listed building that was once home to the London Shipping Exchange, the whole place was empty, save for a flurry of diligent, all-female staff. Friday, it seems, is also not a busy day in the City.

Campanelle’s à la carte menu is similarly sparse, and oddly uninspiring. It offers the likes of lobster linguine, breaded veal cutlets alla Milanese and Amalfi lemon tart, and claims to be influenced by the whole of Italy. At breakfast, however, it serves buttermilk chicken waffles and cornbread with organic nama yasai berry jam, though, curiously, not much in the way of fine Italian pastries or coffee.