For my inaugural SpagWednesday pop-up on February 23rd I lured Francesco Mazzei out of his comfort zone in the state-of-the-art kitchen at L’Anima, his posh Italian restaurant in the City of London, to prepare spaghetti alle vongole (with clams) at Andrews, a 1950s greasy spoon.
The environment for Francesco’s version of the spaghetti classic was dramatically altered but not the emulsione with emozione that clings to it. With colleagues Lello Favuzzi and Claudio Milani he created a creamy, buttery emulsion not with cream or butter, as some disbelieving diners assumed, given the evidence before them, but rather by tossing the pasta with some of its starchy cooking water as well as garlicky clam juices and extra virgin olive oil from his native Calabria.

The Formica-clad informality didn’t change Francesco’s vongole but it did foster the unselfconsious manner in which the spaghetti was twirled, slurped and relished. The lack of starch in the air, as opposed to that in the emulsified sauce, freed all 64 diners to accept my invitation to

eat like a kid. dine like a prince.

Within the pop-up video is an homage to a classic American TV commercial from 1969 for Prince Spaghetti and its 12-year old Bostonian hero, Anthony Martignetti. For the 2011 Londonian version, Francesco, Lello and Claudio brought out the 12-year-old prince in all of us.

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