When you review restaurants, or when you review anything really, for a living, it seems mandatory to find a flaw so as to present a balanced view. This is not one of those reviews. This is, in fact, a love letter to a restaurant that I don’t think gets talked about enough: Legare, your friendly neighbourhood Italian in Tower Bridge.
When it was awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2021 - alongside food’s “cool club” favourites Fallow, Flor and Peckham Cellars – it should have blown up. David Sexton gave it an unfavourable review in the Evening Standard and it hasn’t appeared in a national since. I am honestly baffled as to why. Maybe it’s because it opened relatively quietly in 2019 and was almost definitely overshadowed by its bigger, better known counterparts. Maybe it’s because it’s in such close proximity to Padella, one of a wealth of very good Italian (or otherwise appropriated) restaurants in London. In fairness, it is easily missed if you’re not deliberately trying to find it. Maybe it’s because its menu is short and sweet and changes constantly: you will never have the same thing twice, even if you go in the same week. Personally, I think at least two of those reasons are excellent qualities in a restaurant.
