Maresco is a glimmer of independently owned Spanish-Scottish fishiness in Soho, where I’ve eaten less frequently this winter. The capital’s new openings landscape is being overshadowed by “everywhere else not in London” right now, thanks to rents, rates and staff shortages. Budding restaurateurs will find it easier to follow their dream in Somerset or Stockport, where there is more wiggle room to be delightfully odd, and room in the budget to feed guests. Apologies for the grumbling, but the £32 caesar salad (647 calories) at Decimo in King’s Cross finally broke my spirit. Caesar is leaves, old bread and posh salad cream, and this one made me consider a move to Cleethorpes.
Maresco, however, is a small pocket of sanity on the corner of Berwick Street, which is one of the last pleasantly grotty parts of old Soho left, since CrossRail and various mega-investors turned Dean Street’s environs into a shiny glass-fronted retail experience. Maresco is the first Soho opening by Stephen Lironi, who owns Crouch End’s Bar Esteban and Stoke Newington’s Escocesa. Lironi was, and still is, in the band Altered Images with his wife, Clare Grogan. This fact probably delighted me far more than any other customer at Maresco on the Friday evening we went. If only all of my Scottish New Wave 80’s pop loves could open restaurants; Hipsway or Roddy Frame would have been natural hosts. What might Blue Nile have done with tapas?
