Ambassadors- Bloomsbury
The recently re-opened Ambassadors Bloomsbury is a four-star property situated near newly opened St Pancras and a short walk from Holborn and Chancery Lane. Its location makes this modern and breezy hotel, an ideal stop-over for an early journey on the Eurostar and, equally, a highly pertinent venue for board meeting or conferences which the hotel can easily accomodate. A long way from the hotel’s seedier sisters around the corner in King’s Cross, Ambassadors is infinitely more ‘Bloomsbury set‘ whilst managing to retain the individual idiosyncrasies of the building’s original 1930’s features.
Rooms are bright, comfortable and don all necessary mod-cons including wireless internet and flat screen televisions whilst staff ensure that your stay is as comfortable and as hassle- free as possible. Despite it only being recently re-opened, Ambassadors already seems to be a hit; as both bar, lobby and restaurant enjoyed a quiet buzz of activity on a balmy Monday evening.
The hotel’s real showstopper is its adjacent Italian restaurant- Number 12, which is a destination eatery in itself. Nominated for the Best Italian Restaurant at the London Restaurant Awards- results of which will be announced in September (08) - it does nothing but bask its home in a ray of Sicilian sunshine. Head Chef Santino Buscigilio- himself a Siciliano- has raised the stakes to celestial proportions and serves dishes that are, dare we say it, a leap and jump more superior than the over-priced, over-sexed food at media-darling contemporaries.
The beauty of Number 12 is the simplicity of the dishes .The menu is very much founded on home-cooking peppered intermittently with flicks of British ingenuity. Our animate Head Waiter explained that, to get the best and purest flavours, produce has to have time to ‘crescere’ -grow. Hence Buscigilio’s love-affair with Sicilian style-cooking, where if it’s not practically still attached to the tree, or running around a backyard, it isn’t worth putting in your mouth. And he certainly doesn’t run his kitchen in half measures. Busciglio salts his own cod, smokes his own meat and fish and oversees the baking of six different types of bread every morning, using organic flour ordered from a specialist supplier in Italy. Half measures also do not apply to the produce he uses. He seeks out the best available and freshest ingredients from local markets, selecting British produce where possible. These include Middle White pork from the West Country, fish from small South coast day boats, delivered on the day of the catch, and Scottish raspberries.
Unanimously decided, Number 12 whips up food ‘just like mama used to make it’ married with a bit of that British ‘je ne sais quoi’. Destination eater? Definitely. It is, admittedly, slightly off the Bermuda Triangle of à la mode eateries, which can only a bonus, as you won’t (yet) find a gaggle of paparazzi waiting for so and so to spill out. The word, however, is spreading- even a Monday evening was comfortably buzzing. We suggest you get in quick before that epiphnal moment each ‘secret’ gem, however unreluctantly, encounters- a three month reservation waiting list and eye-watering prices to match.
For further information visit www.numbertwelverestaurant.co.uk, or to reserve call 0207 693 5425.
