Casa Romana in Carlisle is an unreconstructed British-Italian restaurant that celebrated its 30th birthday earlier this month. In times of yore, it was a regular pitstop for my gang before an evening’s shimmying to Jamiroquai at the nearby Pagoda nightclub. We went to Casa Romana for a stomach-lining bowl of carbonara, warm frizzante and a laugh.
This was real Italian food, I thought, until my head was later turned by Anna Del Conte and Rose Gray breathing into my ear that food from Puglia, Florence or Sicily could be delicate and required cogitation, deft seasoning and a fine soffritto base. I learned that lentils, white beans and dressed leaves were authentic, and that salmon fillet in sambuca probably wasn’t. I also learned that expecting an Italian restaurant to serve dough balls was rather gauche, apparently, and that bread in my ribollita was how humble peasants lived and they loved it.
