Plaxy and Giorgio Locatelli’s new restaurant has opened at the recently renovated Sainsbury’s Wing of the National Gallery, London. The renovation, led by Seldorf Architects, is a sensitive overhaul of Venturi Scott Brown’s extension to the two-hundred-year-old gallery, which includes a new espresso bar and the restaurant ‘Locatelli’, which now provides the only publicly accessible bar with views directly onto Trafalgar Square. Surrounded by pietra serena (Florentine marble) and situated below the ‘Early Renaissance’ and ‘Renaissance’ galleries, Italian cuisine is a natural choice for the flagging visitor; though many reportedly skip the galleries altogether, heading straight for the handmade pasta.
Paula Rego was the National Gallery’s first Associate Artist. She drew inspiration from looking at Renaissance paintings by Carlo Crivelli, creating the ten metre mural ‘Crivelli’s Garden’ (1990‒91) for the original Sainsbury Dining Room, which opened in 1991, and now reinstated at Locatelli.
The menu is simple, authentic and seasonal: a slice of the Michelin-starred ‘Locanda Locatelli’ sitting amid an internationally acclaimed collection. The perfect spot to meet friends, for a light lunch or to throwback an Adonis cocktail and speaking of... Giorgio brings a Roman staple to the heart of London. Maritozzi, or ‘little husbands’, brioche buns filled with cream, so called after the 19th-century fashion of proposing by offering one to your lover, with a ring hidden inside.
