The QT’s flagship restaurant specialises in dinner with a side of panache backed by sharp woodfired cooking.
Santini takes pleasure in the theatre of eating out. Just look at the size of the menu, the tableside service, the leather, the marble, the brass-topped tables that bear scars of good times past. Guests know it too, dressing the part – boots shined, lips painted – and bringing real energy to a space already humming with it in its design and the waiters that flit past pouring picpoul from a vast wine list and dispensing advice on where to start.
Big, bold and buzzing, Santini is about dining as experience, and just being here is half the fun.
Where’s that? Scallops, surely, flashed in the wood oven in orange and chilli butter so their tops caramelise and the flesh pushes just to that sweet spot past translucency. Or zucchini flowers, stuffed with lemony ricotta, fried, then doused in burnt-honey syrup.
This may be a bar and grill, but the Italian accent sees pasta offered before mains. You could skip it, but that means skipping ink-black carnaroli risotto. Topped with squid seared until set, it’s a striking dish rendered in black and white, the only thing lacking a little more creaminess. Steak? Try sirloin, perhaps. Purists may want more crust and flavour, but there’s no faulting its peppercorn sauce.
Big, bold and buzzing, Santini is about dining as experience, and just being here is half the fun. Dress up, and sink into it.
