Review: Fiume, Battersea

The river front at Battersea Power Station is a very nice place to be now – as you’d hope, given the number of multi-million pound apartments surrounding you on all sides. It has an array of places to eat and we’ve been recommended No 29 and Wright Bros to try, but on this occasion we went with Italian; Fiume.

Burrata with tomatoes and a pile of watercress was okay, but looked as though as much care had gone into it as I put into a rushed lunch before a meeting at work. Maureen’s pile of aubergine with radishes and hazelnuts was better.

My baked cod was rather over-roasted, so there wasn’t too much left to love about the sturdy piece of white fish in tomato and olive sauce. Maureen did rather better with a cacio e pepe loaded up with generously grated black truffle. This was a well-made pasta, good silky consistency to the sauce and very nice use of truffle. Good good.

Tiramisu for dessert came in an individual metal bowl, had a nice punch of marsala in the sponge but was heavy on the cocoa powder topping. It all ftuck to thu rooth ov my mouf! Maureen’s pannacotta was a wobbly well-set pudding surrounded by gooey morello cherries. It was fine.

Overall Fiume just doesn’t feel like a place where a lot of love goes into the food, and in a few dishes it really shows. Especially galling at £40 for three courses before drinks (to be fair, you’re somewhat paying for the location). I’ll be trying all the other places at Battersea Power Station before I come back to this one.