WORDS
Christopher Archer
PUBLISHED
10 August 2026
I don’t do reviews. It’s kind of gauche for a chef to “review” another restaurant. Especially one by such an esteemed chef as Adam Byatt. But this isn’t a review. It’s a record. A record of where I’ve been, and a record of what I felt about it. Spoiler alert, I loved it. If I thought it was shit, I would record it, but you wouldn’t be reading it right now.
I don’t want to be that guy!
But as I get older, I accumulate more and more visits to restaurants, seldom do I go anywhere more than once. Too little time, too little money and far too many new places to keep up with, to keep going back somewhere again and again. I’m far from your ideal loyal customer, but hey ho, when I do it,I do it properly. No cheap lunch offer and no “I’m not drinking today thanks” when presented with a wine list.
Like flicking back through an old photo album, I feel this exercise will help “remember” great meals many years down the line. Photos of the food on my insta can help, but 10 years from now all I’ll remember is did I like it or not. But I want to know what I was thinking in the moment. How have my opinions on food changed and evolved?
It will be pretty cool to read this many years from now and think,
God was I that much of a prick! And that’s when I’m being nice about somewhere.
I think the only way that I’ll keep it up for that long is if I commit to publishing my thoughts. And here goes.
Like flicking back through an old photo album, I feel this exercise will help “remember” great meals many years down the line.
The place
So, Rosina, the barely 6 weeks old new outpost of chef Adam Byatt not far from his Michelin starred trinity in Clapham.
It’s Italian, unashamedly so, there is a YouTube video about it all. And if it wasn’t an Adam Byatt restaurant I wouldn’t have come.
I’m not bothered about Italian food. Pizza yes, but pasta, burratta, tomato salads et al has never been my vibe.
But I’m glad I did come.
Everything was perfect. No shit lazy tomato sauces, dry bread with olive oil, and batch cooked stuff. Proper flavour, proper technique cooked by a chef who knows how things should taste and that’s how they damn well will taste.
“Proper flavour, proper technique cooked by a chef who knows how things should taste and that’s how they damn well will taste.”
The wine
There’s a great wine list, and a dedicated negroni menu.
I had a spagliato (negroni with prosecco instead of gin, I think!) then we had a bottle of awesome Italian Chardonnay, then another one, then a bottle of pinot noir.
The sommelier took my comment that I don’t know Italian varieties and brought me familiar grapes, just grown in the Italian sun.
Very good they were too.
brought me familiar grapes, just grown in the Italian sun.
The food
Dishes were-
- Fava bean dip with raw vegetables
- Sliced to order mortadella (game changer)
- Sardine stuffed with salsa verde, breadcrumbed and fried. I don’t do sardines (or anchovies for that matter) but these were very good.
- A half portion of cacio e Pepe cavatelli
- Baked turbot with a kind of caper based tartare sauce but it felt more Mediterranean than it sounds.
Fava bean dip with raw vegetables
Sliced to order mortadella
Sardine stuffed with salsa verde, breadcrumbed and fried.
Baked turbot with a kind of caper based tartare sauce
The highlights
The real highlights were a fantastic risotto bianco with an egg yolk you stirred in that made it taste like a meat free carbonara but better than that because I do prefer rice to pasta. Fantastico!!
And fried potatoes which were just about the best potato thing I’ve ever eaten. Ratte or perhaps pink fir potatoes, cooked, squashed and fried till crispy but so rich and fatty in the centre. Like the best potato fondant meeting the best chip, Interbreeding like this should be encouraged!
Like the best potato fondant meeting the best chip
Knockout.
The finish
I think we ordered basically every dessert apart from pistachio gelato (it wasn’t available.) But the standout was the chocolate gelato. How ice cream can taste so much of chocolate is beyond my comprehension. It was more chocolatey than chocolate. But it was ice cream (which is even better)
Seriously good stuff being served here. And I don’t even like Italian food!!
The meal for 4 with cocktails and three bottles of wine was just shy of £500 which is epic value at any time in the last 5 years let alone 2026.
If this is what Rosina is knocking out of their kitchen on a Monday evening after only 6 weeks, I can’t even imagine what they will be doing when I read this back 10 years from now.
All is definitely Rosy at Rosina.
And a Michelin star has to be in the bag to boot.
Christopher Archer
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