Norma

There is a single sentence that sends shock waves down the spine of every child that ever ate an entire bag of Haribo in one sitting, or thought that Febreeze would cover the smell of cigarette smoke. And that sentence is, ‘we’re not mad, we’re disappointed’. No, be mad. Please, be mad. We’re sorry. We never truly understood how our parents felt until we returned to Norma, a restaurant in Fitzrovia that went from a sophisticated, Sicilian-influenced pasta spot, to a let-down in the space of a month.

The thing is, when we first went to Norma we had a great meal. We like to think of that evening as a happier time. A time before we lost our innocence to an offensively fishy tagliolini. But that first meal was excellent. It featured a perfectly simple, slightly smokey pasta alla norma, and a strozzapreti with a pork and orange ragu that was so good we wanted to send it a flirty DM after we left. The negronis were decent. The velvet seating was soft. And the setting looked like the Cotes D’Azur villa we dream of buying after our fourth divorce. We liked it so much that we even put it on our list of London’s best new restaurant openings.

Our next visit to this restaurant was a different story. Those excellent pastas became congealed, boring messes or fish-loaded nightmares. We were left with a lot of questions. Bad ones, like, do we really want to eat this lukewarm sea bream from the raw bar? And, will we ever taste anything but sardines after one mouthful of this tagliolini? And, when can we leave? That first visit seemed like a distant memory, a mirage of tasty pastas, grated pecorino, and truffle. Did we imagine it all? Were we rocking a fever? It was the first time we’ve been gaslit by a ragu. And it hurt.

Of course, sometimes restaurants have off nights. We know that. So we returned to Norma for a lunch that wasn’t totally bad, but between the dry mains and big prices, it wasn’t good either. Plus, by that point the bar was set pretty low. We’d experienced tables not being cleared between courses, forgotten orders, and staff disappearing like their personal hero is Keyser Soze. That’s the problem, at Norma even the basics appear to have gone out of the window.

If we were being generous we’d say that the space is nice and a side order of fried potatoes with grated pecorino saved us from hunger. But you know what, after so many mistakes, it’s hard to think of a reason to come here. We’re basically Tyra Banks shouting ‘we were all rooting for you’, after paying upwards of £50 a head and leaving with a stomach full of tarted up cheesy chips. Actually, on second thoughts, we are disappointed. But we’re mad too.