Rosina is a serene, heavenly-white neighbourhood Italian restaurant just off Wandsworth Common, on the same stretch as the much-celebrated Chez Bruce. It is Adam Byatt’s fifth place – he’s probably best known for Trinity, his Michelin-starred restaurant up the road in Clapham – and, lately, his very good, recipe-driven YouTube channel ran a Road to Rosina series in which he visits suppliers, eats pasta with nonnas and learns peak tiramisu skills from a woman called Pina (more of her tiramisu later). If any neighbourhood can stomach an achingly civilised, Emilia Romagna-influenced, candlelit trattoria where the cloakroom tags are actual Amalfi Coast pebbles engraved with numbers, it is Wandsworth Common, land of the hedge fund/interior design power couple who wouldn’t think twice about sipping a basil gimlet with a plate of melon with culatello di Zibello or gnocco fritto with mortadella. Bella Italia in Bolton this is not.
Rosina’s cocktail bar leans on art deco shapes, with a pale, marble-topped counter and walls covered in David Steen portraits. There’s a small second bar area for those bridging the gap between light dinner and semi-serious drinking, and a larger, linen-tableclothed area for the restaurant proper, with a back room for private dining. Rosina’s intimacy is an optical illusion: the place is as big as a tennis court, and the weekly linen laundry bills alone must make the accountants weep.
