Good luck getting a table at Auguste !

On my way to Auguste, I got lost. Citymapper was not on my side this particular evening, and I ended up stopping a couple to ask if they knew where it was. “Oh, Auguste is amazing, we went last week,” they said, (not quite in unison, but near enough). Great, I thought. In for a treat.

It was an evening that perfectly complimented an Italian-inspired London small plates restaurant. London was in the middle of a ‘heatwave’ – the hottest April day in years – and Auguste spilled neatly out onto the pavement with a handful of outside tables. 

Walking in, I was hit with a smoky aroma from the open kitchen at the back, where meats are being grilled almost in the heart of the dining experience. My appetite immediately increased.

The interior is unfussy, clean with light wood paneling, warm orange lighting, and a line of wine bottles along the back wall, dotted with Venetian masks. The integration of these masks felt like a visual representation for how Auguste sits within London’s ever-popular small plates scene, but with an Italian influence that integrates effortlessly, both in the food and the atmosphere.

My mother is Italian, so I always go into Italian restaurants with mixed feelings. When you’ve grown up on that kind of cooking, it’s hard not to compare any restaurant meal to your own nonna’s. I have to say, reader, Auguste really did the job. Brava! 

Right, enough scene-setting. Let’s get into it. 

I started with a Negroni spritz, which I’d genuinely been fantasising about on the way to the restaurant – bitter, sharp, exactly what you want to ease into a meal with – and looked through the menu, despite already knowing what I wanted. (I love reading menus; it’s a strange hobby of mine.)

The rosti alone is worth going for. It usually comes with tuna tartare, which was unfortunately finished, so they swapped it with beef. I was actually glad for the change and told the waitress as much; it should be a permanent fixture. It was the perfect bite: crunchy, salty, soft, with capers cutting through. My guest and I ended up ordering two more. 

Sea bream with puttanesca salsa and stracciatella with blood orange and iberico tomatoes came next. The sea bream was fresh and oily and the stracciatella creamy with the citrus giving a refreshing little kick. Chicken saltimbocca, which translates literally to “jumps in the mouth”, did just that. Served with soffritto and chicken jus, it tasted deeply nostalgic; I ate versions of it constantly as a child.

At the centre of the menu are arrosticini, meat skewers characteristic of Abruzzo cuisine. These are the culprit of the delicious smoky aroma filling the room from the open kitchen. We tried both the lamb – my personal favourite – and the Wagyu, which my guest preferred. The lamb was juicy and tender, while the Wagyu was deeply smoky and umami-rich.

To finish off we honoured the warm April day with a semmifreddo paired with jam. This was deliciously creamy and “half frozen” as the name suggests, but also surprisingly savoury, which I didn’t expect. Wine-wise, we tried a mix: an orange DIT Celler, Selenite Macabea from Montsant and a chilled red, L’Archetipo’s Radicale Primitivo from Puglia. I’d happily recommend both, particularly the latter on a warm night. 

My evening, quite frankly, was just lovely. A lovely that extended past the food. Quite often a series of dishes can be delicious but the atmosphere just doesn’t qualify a return. ‘Buzzing’, I’m aware, is overused in reviews – but Aguste really does conjure that particular adjective. Towards the end of the evening, I turned to see all three members of staff locked in a laughing group hug behind the bar. They’d been cool, funny and endlessly helpful all evening, and the moment seemed to sum up the restaurant’s energy perfectly. I felt momentarily part of this aspirational new restaurant clan as, having forgotten my notebook, they had handed me an Auguste docket to note down my review.