SpagWednesday Week is my video mix of photos taken by Paul Winch-Furness at six SpagWednesday pop-ups organised in London by young&foodish.

The featured guest chefs are Arcangelo Dandini of L’Arcangelo in Rome, Rowley Leigh of Le Café Anglais in London, Giorgio Locatelli of Locanda Locatelli in London, Francesco Mazzei of L’Anima in London,  Tom Oldroyd of the Polpo Restaurant Group in London, Rachel O’Sullivan of Spuntino in London and Massimo Riccioli of La Rosetta in Rome.

Art direction is by the graphic design consultancy Irish Butcher.

Subscribe to young&foodish now and join the SpagWednesday community. As a member you’ll receive email alerts about upcoming events and early booking privileges.

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.

To receive email alerts about upcoming SpagWednesday and BurgerMonday pop-up dates as well as advance booking privileges, join the young&foodish community or like the y&f facebook page.

What’s for dinner tonight?

If it’s Wednesday and you’ve just watched the classic American TV ad above, for the first time or thousandth time, you know it’s spaghetti day. And if your heart beats for pasta, like Anthony Martignetti, its 12-year-old hero, I would expect you to run, not walk, to the inaugural SpagWednesday pop-up on February 23th. Francesco Mazzei of London’s L’Anima will be preparing his definitive version of spaghetti alle vongole.

The Prince Spaghetti ad was shot on location in Boston’s North End in 1969, when the old neighborhood was still the old neighborhood, which is to say, thoroughly Italian. The Prince brand was founded there in 1912 by three Sicilian Immigrants at a store at 92 Prince Street.

“Anthony! Anthony!” a mother yells out her apartment window.

Her scream was loud and long enough – the spot ran nationally for 13 years – to, as Billy Baker noted in a wonderful Boston Globe article marking the ad’s 40th anniversary, place “Anthony!” alongside “Stella!” from A Streetcar Named Desire, “Elaine!” from The Graduate and “Adrian!” from Rocky in the American pop pantheon.

Whenever I hear anyone shout the name Anthony I know it’s nearly time for spaghetti. It doesn’t matter which one: Anthony Trollope, Anthony Hopkins, Mark Anthony – they all make me hungry. Likewise, the spaghetti doesn’t have to be from a Prince box. Truth is that as much as I loved the Prince ad my mother never cooked with any of its pastas in our Queens, New York apartment, back when the old neighborhood was still the old neighborhood. Prince Spaghetti, Prince Charles, Prince Charming – she wouldn’t open the door to any of that lot.

I had a great time at this year’s Taste (18-21 June), if not for all the same reasons as the good people at Channel 4 sales.  They were enticed by an “upmarket, aspirational consumer event” with a “strong ABC1” audience. Fearing sensory overload I mostly ignored the high managerials and low cleavages, which you can find in abundance at any happy hour near Liverpool Street Station, and instead pursued body overload, with select noshes from amongst 40 of London’s better restaurants. This you cannot do – and should not attempt to do –  in the immediate vicinity of Liverpool Street Station.

Taste fulfills its promise of providing open-air access to a wide variety of dishes from acclaimed restaurants that only the A’s within Channel 4’s coveted ABC1 audience can afford to frequent with any regularity. Most impressively, the kitchen staffs perform at a high level while serving 100 covers per hour in claustrophobic conditions. The festival appears to be a big deal for the star chefs, which makes it a big deal for the public.

Glorious Regent’s Park is no level playing field for Michelin-starred cuisine. Perceptions of foods change when consumed in a standing or walking position from plastic tableware. Fussy foods lose out to finger foods. Hot soup is almost always a bad idea; chilled soup, invariably a good one (e.g. the elegant pea velouté from Jocelyn Herland, executive chef at Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester). And flaunted luxury is in all instances a plus. Having endured endless queues, the festival foragers need to see they’ve waited for something rich.

This partly explains how chef Jean-Philippe Patruno of Quo Vadis stole the show with grilled rib of 48-day Hereford beef. This was steak and this was beautiful. Though many requested slices cut from the rib eye, Patruno preferred the portion nearer the bone, protected from the blazing heat by the rib eye’s rim of fat. “The meat slowly melts,” noted Patruno, using the sort of words that win food festivals. “It’s like a confit cooking in its own fat.” Who is going to say no to that?

The foie gras burger presented by L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon proved to be the perfect festival dish: a popular barbecue sandwich with a precious main ingredient and scrumptious accessories. Served on a brioche bun, the mini-burger was seared to a delectable crisp, with verjus-marinated roast peppers and ginger glaze providing saucy notes of condimental pungency.

Croque Gascon didn’t hide foie gras directly beneath the bun of its terrific duck burger; it shrewdly served slices of it (in terrine form) directly beside it. I may have been the only person in Regent’s Park who was less distracted by the foie than the “crazy salt” sprinkled over the duck-fat frites. If Croque doesn’t begin selling that mix of Fleur de Sel de Guérande and Piment d’Espelette in jars soon I promise that I will.

Playing the conspicuous luxury card, celebrity chef Giorgio Locatelli chose to charm his adoring audience at the Refettorio booth with a hand grater and summer truffles. Rising star Francesco Mazzei of L’Anima did the same, as if he were emulating his charismatic countryman. He scattered the truffle shavings rather generously over fettuccine with wild mushrooms.

Mazzei and I somehow got to talking about linguine vongole: instinctively he identified this as one of my weaknesses. He noted how the starch from the pasta water was required to transform the vongole sauce into an emulsione with emozione. That sounded good to me.

Mazzei and I parted with this wager: If, when I visit L’Anima, his linguine vongole is not the best in London, he pays. If I concede that it is the best, I pay double.