Tarantella

4 Elliott Road
W4 1PE

020 8987 8877


Tarantella opened in Elliott Road early in 2007, replacing the popular local That's Amore, next door to Jimmy's barbers. We'd never been before. If we've walked past it once a week since it opened, that's about 700 times without ever wondering what it's like inside. But then we went twice in little over a week, the nights before our youngest two fledglings left the nest after the long, long first lockdown.

It's a tiny space, with tightly packed tables arranged on two levels and some spilling out on the pavement when the weather is kind. It feels like a proper little Italian trattoria, the sort of place you might have visited in the 1970s, before all the chains and fancy restaurants arrived in Chiswick. 

The name of the restaurant is derived from a traditional Italian folk dance "used to capture the heart of a lover, or as a dance to cure a deadly tarantula bite" (other remedies are available). It also sells a range of Italian grocery staples including pesto, wine, flour, yeast, pasta, polenta and Italian tinned tomatoes and beans.

They've got a good but small range of typical Italian starters. On my first visit with Young Mister W4 we'd stopped off first for a beer at The Italian Job, so had worked up sufficient appetite to share a melanzana ripiena (roasted aubergine stuffed with olives, mushrooms and mozzarella with tomato sauce) and a mozzarella pomodorella (baby mozzarella marinated in sun-dried tomato pesto, wrapped in Valtellina speck and baked in the oven). The second time I went with Mrs & Miss West4urants, and we more modestly shared two between three: a bruschetta with fresh tomatoes and a burrata Pugliese (smoked creamy mozzarella with baby tomatoes, artichoke and roasted peppers).

But it's all about the pasta and pizza really. Miss W4 had the pasta of the day and Mrs W4 had spaghetti vongole (she doesn't usually eat carbs after dark but she had just walked 192 miles) plus side salad of course. The 'boy' can't resist a calzone and I must admit I tend to order pizza in Italian restaurants on the grounds that you can cook pasta at home. Neither disappointed.

If you live within walking distance of Tarantella you're lucky to have a proper local Italian on your doorstep. If you're too lazy for that and want "a slice on the side of the hot tub," then get "delivery like a g" through Snoop Dogg's favourite, Just Eat.

Food (for 3 - second visit): £65.80

Drink: £33.95

Total: £116.55

The Carpenter's Arms

91 Black Lion Lane
W6 9BG

020 8741 8386

Having relaxed the W4 rule, we took another journey into W6 on a scorching hot August evening.

(By the way, did you know that London postcodes are in alphabetical order? It seems natural that Warple Way W3 is just a stone's throw from Abinger Road W4, but Emlyn Road W12 sounds like it should be miles away, when in fact it's the next road over. Wikipedia has more for nerds (like me) but it goes: W3 Acton, W4 Chiswick, W5 Ealing, W6 Hammersmith...)

But I digress. Just over 50 years after St Peter’s Square was laid out by George Scott, The Carpenter’s Arms first opened its doors as a public house in 1871, owned by Burton-based brewer Thomas Salt & Co. The pub website reports that Chris Blackwell opened the Island Records office in the square in 1973: "We like to think that many of their roster of musicians including Bob Marley & The Wailers, Aswad, Cat Stevens, Robert Palmer, Steve Winwood, Grace Jones and U2 would have enjoyed a lock in at The Carpenter’s Arms." Maybe, although I reckon Bob and Bunny would have been down the other end of the lane at The Black (Iron) Lion (Zion), With Or Without U2.

In the mid-90s the pub changed ownership and became Le St Pierre and then The Lazy Vine, before the present owners bought the pub and returned it to its roots in 2007. 13 years on and the outside could do with a bit of re-decorating; the pub now appears to be called 'The Carpenter S Arm'. Perhaps they should just go down the Fawlty Towers route and re-arrange the letters into a new anagram each week: 'Enter Hamster's Crap'?

It's long been a favourite of the critics. Time Out named it best local restaurant in Hammersmith in 2015, AA Gill awarded it 5 stars and Times chef Lindsay Bareham finds its "boho style" her idea of "a perfect gastropub". But perhaps Harden's Guide sums it up best: "if Carlsberg made gastropubs..."

The only gripe, according to Harden contributors, is that it's a bit expensive for a pub. Which made it the perfect place to go to 'Eat Out to Help Out'. Rishi Sunak is the only Cabinet Minister to emerge from the past 5 months with his reputation enhanced, and launching 'Rishi's Dishes' was a masterstroke: 35 million meals went on the Treasury tab in the first 2 weeks alone. Younger Miss West4urants had already eaten around 0.00001% of those meals, so her elder sister was persuaded to accompany us.

Hands thoroughly sanitised, we were escorted through to the back garden, strung with lights that give it a festival vibe. Sadly that doesn't extend to the chairs, which exude more of a prison vibe. If the mission was to find chairs so uncomfortable that nobody overstays their allocated two hour window I must say it was successfully completed.

I started with what was described simply as 'gazpacho' but was made even more refreshing with the addition of melon (tomato and melon is our latest summer fad). Miss W4 went for more fruit, choosing the burrata pugliese with plums and rocket, while Mrs W4 had the torched mackerel with caponata, grilled courgette, rocket and lemon oil.

Miss W4's main course took the Instagram prize: a globe artichoke with avocado, summer leaves and orange peel (more fruit). Mrs W4 had sea bass with aubergine and I had the porchetta with crackling, apple sauce, bean puree and kale. We accompanied that with hand-cut chips and some padron peppers (has anyone ever had a really hot one or is that just a clever marketing ploy like the golden tickets hidden in Wonka Bars?)

Rishi chipped in £30 towards the bill, although as it's taken off before service charge, we felt the staff were losing out.  Disappointingly, if you top it up on the card machine the staff don't get it, so make sure you take cash if going this week. We'd definitely be returning if we didn't have so many more places still to review.

Food (for 3): £68.00

Drink: £46.90

Total: £134.26

Franco Manca

144 Chiswick High Road
W4 1PU

020 8747 4822


We've got a lot of catching up to do, and thanks to the Coronavirus we're getting plenty of time to do it. Back before Christmas (in the year 1 BC) after a few weeks in Japan feasting on seaweed, tofu and raw fish, I must admit I was craving a simple pizza and a bottle of red wine. And being a bit of a glutton, I ended up having pizza two nights running. You won't be reading a review of Zia Lucia and its delicious vegetable charcoal and wholemeal bases here, partly because it's on the Holloway Road and partly because, well, this is not a blog about where Arsenal fans eat pizza.

Sadly there isn't a branch in Chiswick (the nearest is in Blythe Road W14) so we had to make do with Franco Manca, which is (just) our W4 favourite. (It also has the cheapest margherita in Chiswick at £6.75 which, according to its most recent online menu, pips Pizza Express by a whopping £5.15 if you haven't got a voucher).

Numeric talent and a passion for economics brought Giuseppe Mascoli from Positano to London and eventually a job as assistant lecturer at the London School of Economics. But in 2008 he lit his first wood-fired oven in Brixton Market on the site of a more conventional pizzeria, Franco's; in Italian ’manca’ means 'gone’ so literally Franco Manca means 'Franco’s gone'.

The second Franco Manca was opened in Chiswick in 2009, on the site formerly occupied by Eco. The back wall features a mural by Enzo Apicella, who started designing the interiors of trattorias, including early branches of Pizza Express, in the 1960s. (According to his obituary in The Times, Apicella would eat mainly vegetarian meals, insisted on plenty of garlic and drank a glass of red wine with most meals. At home he liked to try new things, including curry pizza and porridge with pesto or parmesan. And he lived to the age of 96, so who are we to judge?)

When we visited the youngest member of the family was at uni (probably tucking in to her signature Italian dish - white pasta with butter and cheese) so there were just four of us. We shared some olives, British bresaola and baked aubergine parmigiana to start with.

We all had different pizzas: the vegan special (with butternut squash, kale and vegan cheese); the veggie special (yellow tomatoes and green peppers from Vesuvio and watercress pesto); the meat special (with lightly spiced Ventricina salami and Franco & Cantarelli grana); and a Napoletana. You can probably guess who had which. And we washed them down with a bottle of Montepulciano from Francesco Cirelli's organic farm in Abruzzo. You can probably guess who had most.

We rarely get to pudding on the blog, but purely in the interests of research we shared a fairly dense chocolate and hazelnut cake and young Mr W had an affogato, which he enjoyed to the very last drop (see picture).

40 per cent of Americans eat pizza at least once a week. I could happily join them. But on the flipside, I can at least walk to Chiswick High Road and back unaided.

Food (for 4): £53.55
Drink: £19.50
Total: £81.05

The Elder Press Cafe

3 South Black Lion Lane
W6 9TJ


020 3887 4258


Hard to believe now, but only last month Mrs WEST4URANTS was bored of W4. Today we're so desperate to go out we'd be up at 6 to be first in the queue for Costa Coffee.

We've still got at least 50 places to go in Chiswick, and there are new ones springing up all the time. We haven't been to The Post Room yet, or Waft Coffee. Covid-19 permitting there's a Five Guys coming, The Silver Birch is planning to take over the old Brew site and D Grande is hoping to become the first Tex-Mex in W4 since the Indian Chief left his reservation on the Terrace. 

I'm in the 'does what it says on the tin' school for the blog, Mrs West4 is in the 'why limit ourselves to the tin' camp. So we've compromised again, and we're going to extend to places that Chiswick residents can get to easily (when they're allowed out again).

The Elder Press is only a few hundred yards outside W4, so near that many people assume it's inside, to the obvious irritation of W6 correspondents on ChiswickW4.com ("it's actually in Hammersmith"). 

The Elder Press is the brain child of Lindsay Elder, who previously ran Skittle Alley coffee at the Black Lion pub across the road. The name is a nod to the rich printing legacy of the neighbourhood, which is marked by a number of blue plaques nearby. (If you're interested in fonts and printing, there's an interesting tale of the Doves Type font on the website, but it's not to everyone's taste, so we'll leave the font blog until month four of the lockdown).

Lindsay is highly qualified, having been a pastry chef and worked in numerous high-end restaurants. The cafe serves a range of delicious breakfast, brunch and lunch options, as well as bread and cakes to eat in or take away. Upstairs is a studio space, and there's a regular programme of yoga workshops and other wellness events.

We pass the cafe regularly on the weekend dog walk, and have often stopped for a coffee in the courtyard, where dogs are welcome. It wasn't really courtyard weather when we stopped off for brunch with the older two 'children' a few months back. 

I had the grilled cheese (on toast) with tomatoes, which is served with a gem leaf salad. It's every bit as simple as it sounds, great comfort food. Miss West4 had the mushrooms on toast with cavolo nero cooked in a garlic thyme butter, with a poached egg on top and the meat eater had the day's special, a bacon & egg croissant with spicy homemade tomato sauce.

Mrs West4 had the kimchi pancakes, which she thought were delicious. It's fair to say that kimchi divides opinion in our house, just as fat did in the residence of Mr & Mrs Jack Sprat. She swears that all things k - kombucha, kefir, kimchi, kvass - are good for the gut. Whereas my golden rule is never to eat anything beginning with ki: kimchi, kippers, kidneys (KitKat being the obvious exception that proves the rule).


Food (for 4): £38.50
Drink: £6.40
Total: £44.90

Avanti

4 Bedford Corner
South Parade
W4 1LD

020 8994 4444


We're always a little wary of restaurants where the menu is bigger than the kitchen. But with our own kitchen full of hungry twenty-somethings, and Ciara on the way, Avanti at Bedford Corner was the closest port in the storm.

Until the summer of 2007, the site was occupied by The Copper Kettle, an old-fashioned cafe that served pretty average coffee and sticky after-school tea treats. When the owner wasn't well enough to continue, it was taken over by Franck Dardenne & Patrice Cauchard, two friends born and bred in Normandy who had lived locally for over 30 years. (The name Darcau was taken from their surnames.) Offering a range of homemade sandwiches, salads and traditional French favourites, Darcau served the best food on Bedford Corner since Mrs Lad's samosas disappeared when the family newsagent closed.

Issues around parking curtailed the number of outside tables and in June 2016 (after Mrs West4urants had visited, but before she'd had a chance to write up the review) Franck and Patrice threw in the towel. The site turned into the Melody Cafe. A definition of 'melody' is a sweet or agreeable succession of sounds. Well there was nothing sweet or agreeable about the owners of this cafe. They put up a monstrous gazebo without bothering to ask for permission, spent a year arguing about it with residents and the local council, and then cleared off a little over a year later.

Avanti - which means forward in Italian - opened in March 2018. It's a Mediterranean bistro, offering tapas and classic dishes from Spain, Italy, Greece and France. Owner Hashim Gabbar Khidyer was previously involved in La Toscana, at the Goldhawk end of Chiswick High Road, and some restaurants in Ealing. Thankfully, he has no plans to put up a gazebo, although there a few outdoor tables. The inside has been completely rearranged and refurbished, it has an authentically cosy bistro feel.

We shared a few tapas to start with: croquetas de bacalao (deep-fried croquettes with "prawns and cod filling"), fabada asturiana (rich butter bean stew cooked with onion, chorizo and bacon - yes, veganuary is finally over) and some padron peppers. Of these, the peppers were easily the best, simply cooked and served. The croquettes and stew had a slight glue-like consistency that suggested they'd been re-heated rather than freshly prepared in that tiny kitchen, but that may be unfair.

We were torn between paella and pizza for main course (i.e. we couldn't agree). We ended up with pizza - a Napoli and a Prosciutto Funghi - which at £8.95 are amongst the best value pizzas in Chiswick. We chose a bottle of Cerro Anon Crianza from the unashamedly Old World wine list.

If you didn't live in Chiswick you wouldn't travel far to eat at Avanti. But we do, and we should be grateful for this friendly addition to the neighbourhood.


Food (for 2): £35.70
Drink: £32.95
Total: £75.51