To wander into a church crypt in Mayfair and spend £11 on a glass of blanc de noir and £12.50 on a sandwich. This is the way of the world, I suppose? Though there is beauty in it: one, it is St Mark’s Church, built in the 1830s in the Greek Revival style; and two, doing the selling is De Santis, famous for panini shops in Milan since the Sixties. Now we have one here. In come the cured meats, the negronis, the brilliant chrome.
De Santis is glorious in Milan. The original of four outposts is a little shop in soothing green, its awning outstretched. Inside, celebrity pictures on mottled walls, stained glass lampshades and dark wooden benches. And it is in the Magenta district, home to the bourgeoisie. Mayfair and its locale suddenly make sense.
