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

The Crown

210 Chiswick High Road
W4 1PD

020 3330 7131


For the first review of the revived blog we decided to visit Chiswick's hottest opening of the year, The Crown at 210 Chiswick High Road. For 10 years the site was the home of Carvosso's, and keener followers will recall Mrs W's review from three years ago. (For less keen followers, i.e. most of you, here's a reminder). 

I'm not sure quite how Carvosso's lasted so long, I don't know anyone who went more than once, so The Crown already has the edge.  We've been twice, almost like proper restaurant reviewers.

The stucco-fronted former police station (until 1970) is the new venture of local chef Henry Harris, who made his name at Racine in Chelsea. It's the fourth site of Harcourt Inns. They had hoped to call it The Harlot (apparently inspired by Hogarth's 18th century series of prints The Harlot's Progress) but some pious locals objected, so the The Crown it is. 

According to ChiswickW4 the pub's local suppliers include Natoora, HG Walter in Barons Court and the Baker family, who have the greengrocers next to the pub. I have to take out a small mortgage if I want anything from Natoora, so I'm assuming most of the fruit and veg comes from the greengrocers next door, or profits will be waning. 

We first visited during the soft launch in January with friends who know Henry. This connection proved useful when after a long wait for our drinks HH went to get them himself. (The wait was just as long the second time. Unfortunately Henry was sat with friends at another table so we just had to wait our turn though they do need to work on that before the courtyard starts filling up in the summer.)

Our second visit was with friends from south of the river. Word of the blog has spread from W4 to SW13, and they left behind the Barnes delights of Riva and Sonny's to join us, promising not to fall off their chairs.

This time I started with the cannellini and broad bean minestrone. There were enough cannellini beans to stand a spoon up in, but their broader cousins were more scarce, and the broth was much too salty. Our guests both had the caponata and mozzarella on toast, which I'd had on our first visit, and was a much better choice. Mrs W had the chickpea tortelli (because we don't get enough chickpeas at home) and liked the taste but found the tortelli hard. Is that a thing? Hard tortelli? We weren't sure.

You may have to wait ages for drinks, but we'd barely had time to finish our starters when the main courses arrived. I had the classic Dordogne duck dish: confit with celeriac remoulade and Sarladaise potatoes, which rather boringly I'd also had on our first visit. The duck was perfectly cooked, and the potatoes wonderfully crunchy, but the remoulade felt like an after-thought and could have done with being a bit sharper (it's much better at Le Vacherin). Mrs W (and one of our guests) had the salmon with chargrilled onions, Marinda tomatoes and borage puree, which she really enjoyed. Our other guest had the whole roast coquelet with artichokes and turnip tops, which looked like a feast, though he thought his greens looked "a bit shagged out".

The wine list is genuinely interesting, apparently sourced by Mrs Harris. Lots of classics but some intriguing new finds too, from which we chose the Gaba do Xil Mencia on our first visit, a delicious Spanish red that the Harrises apparently drink at home.

All in all The Crown is a great addition to the Chiswick eating out scene. It is very much a gastro-pub, but clearly plenty of people just go in for a drink and the outside courtyard will come into its own when (and if) the sun starts shining.


Food (for 2): £53.63
Drink: £24.85

Total: £88.29

Review of 2016

Yogi Berra famously said: "It ain't over till it's over." But we did reach a bit of a stalemate.

Mrs WEST4URANTS fairly pointed out that the blog claims to be: "One family's attempt to eat its way round as many as possible of the 100 or so restaurants in Chiswick during 2016." And therefore she said we should just call it a day.

Whereas in my mind we set ourselves a challenge and we shouldn't quit half way through. Did I stop collecting Esso 1970 World Cup coins when there were still gaps where Emlyn Hughes and Alan Mullery should have been? Hell, no.

And while I'd be lying if I claimed we'd broken internet records, if I had a pound for every time we'd been asked to recommend a restaurant in Chiswick I'd have nearly enough money to buy a peach from Natoora. (And of course my mind always goes blank, like when someone hands you the Sonos at dinner and asks you to choose something 'really good'.)

Marriage is all about compromise, so we've agreed to round-up 2016 and then re-start in 2019 on an intermittent basis.

So...

We had something to eat in 50 different places in Chiswick in 2016, spending a quite embarrassing £3,571.03.

Our best (and most expensive) meal was probably Hedone, but then we did spend more than a tenth of our annual budget on that and you wouldn't want to go there every day.

Our worst was a breakfast at Rhythm & Brews, which seemed to have been thrown together by some hungover students. But that was probably unfair, and the owner was very apologetic about it and offered us a free breakfast (which we couldn't take up because we had to keep going to different places).

Did we find a new favourite? Well we didn't discover anywhere much better than Trompette or HRH or Charlotte's or Vacherin; they're local favourites for a reason. But we discovered Faanoos and the Coffee Traveller and Angie's Little Food Shop. I liked The Italian Job so much I bought shares in it (do go), Miss W4 got a job at Urban Pantry and Nikki's Bakery became a lucky study venue for Master W4.

In our two year break we've said goodbye to Carvosso's, Le Pain Quotidien, The Smokehouse, Jackson + Rye, Byron, Foxlow and Quantus, among others. Patisserie Valerie moved to where Maison Blanc had been, and then closed down abruptly when its finance director was taken into custardy for stealing all the dough. Darcau closed and its replacement, Melody Cafe, lasted barely a year, most of which was spent arguing with the council over its monstrous 'gazebo'.

But we've got plenty of new places to try. Top of the list when the hype dies down is The Crown, Henry Harris' bustling new venture in the former police station previously occupied by Carvosso's. As Yogi would say: "Nobody goes there nowadays; it's too crowded."

The Bell & Crown

11-13 Thames Road
Strand on the Green
W4 3PL

020 8994 4164


Christmas Eve (yes, the early enthusiasm is waning somewhat - yours too I guess). A dog walk and pub lunch. It's as much a part of our Christmas as the annual visit to St Michael & All Angels and the Boxing Day Olympics. And a rare visit for the blog to Strand on the Green, almost the Western end of the W4 postcode.

The Bell & Crown was licensed in 1751, although pub historians think it probably had an earlier name. Many believe the name stems from the practice of ringing a bell to alert bootleggers and smugglers that the 'crown' (or tax man) was coming. Rumour has it that a ghost used to cause havoc at the bar - turning on the beer pumps in the middle of the night (I have a feeling that ghost may have moved to our house judging from the state our kitchen is often in when we return home from one of these visits). The pub was acquired by Fuller, Smith & Turner in 1814 and rebuilt in 1907. Two hundred years later it's still serving Fuller's finest ales. So I started with a pint of Pride and Master WEST4URANTS had a pint of the Bengal Lancer, an IPA "inspired by India Pale Ales of times gone by".

The boys kept it simple, with the fish and chips, or Frontier Battered Cod, to give it its formal title. I think those cod would be pleased to know their batter was made from Fuller's small batch new-wave craft lager; nobody wants to be battered in Carling.

The menu is short on classic pub grub so the girls were forced to deviate - one crab, tarragon and chilli risotto and two roasted beetroot and squash salads, with tarragon pesto, feta, lentils and toasted pumpkin seeds. They were happy enough.

Bellies filled, dog rested, we set off on the long walk back home. Seems a long time ago now.....


Food (for 5): £66.50
Drink: £8.70
Total: £85.00

Le Vacherin

76-77 South Parade
W4 5LF

020 8742 2121


When we lived in St Albans Avenue, we'd often go down to Riso, our local Italian on South Parade. The highlight of one birthday dinner was when one of our friends leaned back a little too far on his chair and toppled over backwards taking a large pot plant with him - children take note. (This is where we find out if he reads the blog).

Le Vacherin took over the site in 2004 and soon after we visited with friends who were able to sit in their chairs properly. At the end of the evening the chef came out to say hello and offer us a free drink (I think because we were the very last to leave by a long way but still very forward-thinking of him). He could not have been more different from the stereotypical Albert Roux lookalike we were expecting. Malcolm John arrived in Chiswick from St Vincent, via Croydon and Positano. He became head chef at Danielli's (which became Gravy, which became Chella, which became La Mancha, which became Brew - keeping up?) before opening his own traditional French bistro on South Parade.

John soon started earning rave reviews from even better restaurant critics than us. Giles Coren and AA Gill were early fans, the latter describing the signature baked vacherin as "a duck-heart-stopping dish of unctuous splendour and, on its own, worth finding Chiswick for."

We've been several times over the last decade, and for our most recent visit we were joined by locals who can count one of London's top chefs amongst their own circle of friends (i.e. they know what they're talking about when it comes to eating - and drinking).

In the interests of the blog we all had different starters, although we probably needn't have bothered because I'm not going to describe them all for you. Marine Le Pen would surely have stood up and sung La Marseillaise in honour of the girls' starters - six escargots for Mrs Local Friend and a red wine poached pear and roquefort salad for Mrs WEST4URANTS. The boys choices were more Graeme Le Saux (in that they just sounded a bit French) - a game and pistachio terrine for me and a Jerusalem artichoke velouté with shredded smoked duck and black truffle for him.

But we redeemed ourselves by going all in for the baked vacherin for main course (purely for the blog of course). Vacherin Mont d'Or is a soft, rich, seasonal cow's milk cheese from the Jura region. It is produced when the cows come down from the mountain pastures for winter (between 15 August and 15 March) and sold from 10 September to 10 May. The restaurant serves the cheese straight from the oven with pickled vegetables, celeriac rémoulade and bayonne ham. It is every bit as good as AA Gill described.

The girls went for the pumpkin ravioli with trompette mushrooms and toasted pine nuts and a supreme of hake with garlic aioli (is there any other type?) and artichoke barigoule (whatever that is). Although absolutely stuffed, we sacrificed our stomachs for our art, and shared a delicious tarte tatin with vanilla ice-cream.

This truly is the finest French restaurant North of the Chiswick High Road.

Food (for 2): £65.15
Drink: £49.00
Total: £127.60