Is a restaurant worth a 4am alarm and a 1,600-mile round trip? Some are worth far more: I’d ride a horse naked through Bracknell to go to Maido in Peru, or Wing in Hong Kong. But they are two of the best dining destinations in the world. I wasn’t so sure about Langosteria, an upscale Italian seafood restaurant, even if it counts Rihanna, Naomi Campbell, Leonardo DiCaprio and the Beckhams as fans.
Still, you can’t let an early morning get in the way of a free trip to Italy, so I clambered fuzzily into my Addison Lee and off we went to join the international commuters at City Airport — all very expensive linen and bad croissants.
Milan is where Enrico Buonocore founded his seafood restaurant in 2007. It was small and unknown then and Buonocore, originally from the Amalfi Coast, was host, runner, and sommelier all in one. These days he presides over a growing group of nine and wears tailored suits from Italy’s most glamorous fashion houses. Following two other venues outside Italy — in Paris and St Moritz — is the latest outpost, in London. Find it inside the OWO, the £1.4 billion development in Whitehall that hasn’t always seen its restaurants viewed favourably.
Buonocore, a very Italian restaurateur — charismatic, funny, warm and a little un-PC — oversees a lunch on day one in Milan. We have tuna carpaccio first. “This is my sauce,” says Buonocore, stirring a little copper pot at the table. “It all started here — I used to have it with pasta. Now it’s the gold. We put it on our tuna, which comes with aubergine, candied tomatoes and basil. It’s good with bread, too, when mopping up.” Scarpetta is everything.
Next, a seafood salad of crayfish, squid and tiger prawns, followed by a saffron-imbued seafood risotto made with lobster stock and a theatrical tiramisu, positioned inside a glass cylinder which, when removed, allows the chocolate-dusted mascarpone to flow down over circles of the coffee-soaked sponge fingers. Everybody’s bowls are polished off ferociously, even if it isn’t quite as good as the one at Le Beccherie in Treviso.
The Langosteria crowd
Langosteria is a glitzy, expensive brand. Meals aren’t unknown to exceed £200 per head, and they can be far more with rarer wines. Each restaurant is softly nautical, with plenty of marble and travertine, lacquer and rich upholstery. Bars are polished, lighting warm; marine stripes and Venetian blinds might be accented in lobster red.
At Langosteria Montenapoleone in Milan’s fashion district, diners will sip Prince Alfonso cocktails (rum, Dubonnet, bitters and homemade cherry juice; delicious and strong) at the bar before dinner, snacking cautiously on langoustines and caviar. See Giorgio Armani enjoy prawn crudo; find Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana sipping Sicilian red wine before eating red snapper under punchy salsa verde. Menus and napkins feature playful illustrations of seafood characters wearing top hats. A little like Wiltons, round the corner in Mayfair. Will this sleek combination of Italian cooking and frippery translate to London? There’s no reason why not. London has had a long love affair with Italian food and high-end service, not to mention careful irreverence.
Dishes are specific to London, such as gambero rosso with beetroot and pecorino
“London is a great city, and a great city for restaurants,” Buonocore says. “We have wanted to come here for a long time. We thought carefully about where to go. The OWO is an iconic building. I love the history.” He says it’s crucial to impress the locals first. The “yellow submarine risotto”, which will make the move to London, could do just that. Other dishes are specific to the city, such as gambero rosso with beetroot and pecorino. What about that Italian culinary myth: no cheese on seafood? One progressive chef has been serving warm mussels with pecorino on Ischia, off Naples, for years. Times are slowly changing in Italian food. London must catch up.
Langosteria has arrived with great promise, wit and charm. Restaurants at the OWO haven’t always been widely praised, with negative reviews of some of its restaurants in this newspaper and elsewhere. “High on cost, low on laughs, you’ll leave bored and broke,” said the former Standard critic Jimi Famurewa of Mauro Colagreco’s restaurant in 2023; in the same year, Jay Rayner, then of the Observer, called Café Lapérouse “dismal” and “expensive” and said he had to “cadge” bread from the next table. It closed in January 2025. No critic has reviewed a restaurant at the venue since Giles Coren went to Kioku in 2024. Paper Moon, another Italian fixture that opened there last year, has been untouched by critics.
No expense spared
Langosteria could entice them back. Since it opened last month, influencers have been pouring in for oysters, sea bass paccheri and black grouper. The venture is being overseen by Michele Biassoni, who in 2020 joined the group as executive chef before becoming its head of operations. No expense has been spared in the kitchen: as well as fine British and Italian seafood, speciality ingredients are flown in from around the globe.
Shalini Hinduja, on behalf of the Hinduja Group, which owns the OWO, tells the Standard: “Langosteria enhances everything we set out to achieve here — a vibrant community where homeowners, hotel guests and visitors share in the very best of global hospitality, now with another extraordinary restaurant at its heart.”
Extraordinary is a big word. I certainly didn’t bemoan the early wake-up call for lunch in Milan. If the same restaurant is here, well, forza Langosteria.
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