Lina Stores
Italian
20 Stable Street, King’s Cross, N1C 4DR
££
Lina Stores has existed in Deli form since 1944. Based on Brewer Street in Soho, it offers up cured meats, cheeses and bespoke Italian products. It now has three permanent restaurants featuring the antipasti and deserts you’ll find in the deli, along with fresh, handmade pasta every day.
We went to the Kings Cross restaurant one Sunday lunch right before Christmas. Our table of 5 were sat in the middle at a lovely, spacious round table that made for easy conversation, perfect given a number of us were meeting for the first time and the acoustics were pretty loud. The venue was bright and airy (comforting given the pandemic and our close proximity to Christmas and seeing elderly loved ones), and the staff were welcoming and accommodating. We each started with an Aperitivi – a mix of Negroni’s (£10), Limoncello Spritz (£9) and I went for the Mora e Salvia Sour (£8). All looked lovely and mine tasted like a spiced, herby take on a vimto. Probably not the most sophisticated, but neither am I.
For food, I ordered the Arancini Balls (£6) – one with gorgonzola and pear, and the other truffle and parmesan. These were by far some of the best arancini I’ve had, as it can often be rather disappointingly tasteless and stodgy. These were small, which for their cheap price wasn’t disappointing, crispy on the outside, and didn’t have too much rice on the inside. Rather, they were dominated by the accompanying flavours: just how arancini should be. Others on the table went for the Burrata (£9.75) which always looks good, and the Gnocco Fritto (£6), which was a generous portion for the price but also something you could easily recreate at home. We had a bottle of Primitivo (£29) as it was in line with our very grown-up rule of going for the second cheapest (hasn’t failed us since the waiter at Duck and Waffle advise us to do it). It was perfect – rich, bodied, fruity, delicious.
For main, I was stuck between the Truffle and Egg Yolk Taglioni and the Duck Marsala Ravioli. The Taglioni would be my usual choice, as it’s all my favourite flavour combinations with pasta, but the Duck was original and not something I had tried before. Tom and I decided to order both and share, which is definitely the best option if it is available to you. The Taglioni was incredible as expected, a large portion was swimming in creamy sauce and covered in a generous shaving of black truffle: heaven on a plate, if you ask me, and perfectly filling for the small price tag. The Duck Ravioli was also good, came swimming in dark rich broth and was stuffed with a generous portion of tender meat. Admittedly, however, I was missing the creaminess of the cheese and indulgence here, and dare I say the ravioli was slightly too aldente even for me (I usually get told off for ‘undercooking’ my pasta at home).
We still had room for desert, and given the prices are now probably better than infamous pasta rival Padella, we decided to go ahead and sample some more of the menu. The table had a mix of the Chocolate cake (£5) and the Cannolo (£5), both of which were rich, decadent and incredibly filling. The orange and cinnamon helped cut through the sweetness of the cream in the Cannolo, and the Pastry was a great crunchy, flaky counterpart to the otherwise soft and fluffy interior. It was good, but it was quite sickly and I’m not sure I’d opt for it a second time around. The chocolate cake was more of a torte – halfway to a mousse. The sour cream it was served with was a perfect partner, providing something slightly bitter to cut through the sweet.
Overall Lina Stores is a lovely place to come for a casual lunch with friends. The food is good, the locations are very central and the prices are reasonable. Indulgence should leave you with both a full stomach and happy wallet, and this does both.
(no photos pictured are my own)
OVERALL RATING: ****
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