Art à la carte
When is a restaurant not a restaurant? When it's a café, perhaps, or an art gallery, or a canteen where artists can eat for £1, or a location for anything from Jade Jagger's 25th birthday party to product launches. In fact, when it's Delfina.
Established as a trust by Spanish art patron Delfina Entrecanales, this converted chocolate factory in Southwark acts principally as a base for promising artists, offering 14 of them free accommodation, studio space and the chance of exhibiting.
Every weekday, though, from noon until mid-afternoon it feeds wired City folk the kind of fused food which drives luvvy critics like Michael Winner to apoplexy: roasted tandoori poussin and tomato couscous; nori stuffed Gresham duck; Thai coconut bouillabaisse.
Come teatime, the pastel eau-de-nil tables vanish into a black cubbyhole. The spare dining room reverts to an even more minimalist space of polished boards and white walls. No longer a restaurant, it becomes a function venue.
In the kitchens, Cinderella-like, chef Maria Elia cling-wraps the last of the kangaroo steaks from lunch, takes a breather and starts preparing finger food for the evening's party. It's a task which the 30-year-old Anglo-Cypriot tackles with flare and virtuosity. Having cooked in Italy, Spain and the USA as well as having spent two years globe-trotting in the galley of a 40m-long ocean-going yacht, she can switch from rustic Basque to Pacific Rim with equal ease.
Her biggest challenge to date has been feeding the Guild of Food Writers at its annual awards presentation in June. Theming her menu around fish (the Seafish Authority was a sponsor), she wowed 200 disingenuous professional foodies with a string of pretty and powerfully flavoured titbits such as lobster bruschetta, Caesar prawns, and spiced mackerel in crisp-fried egg noodles.
Working in this unique "café des artistes", she is encouraged to be inventive. The variety of events held in Delfina's gallery (it can host parties from 30 to 800 standing up) means that no two occasions are alike. The elegant mouthfuls she serves look as if they've been designed by Lorna Wing and taste as if they come from the kitchens of the Sugar Club.
