Problem solved, one plate at a time
For almost 60 years, three generations of my family have quietly gone about their business running my restaurant, Il Portico, in Kensington. A small, family-run place, it is the very last of its kind in the capital. Thirty years prior, places like ours were found on every high street in the smoke. Invariably, each and every one would be run by an Italian gentleman aged between 50 and 70, who emigrated from the rural heartlands in search of streets paved with gold.
Like my father, they grew up rough shooting in the Italian hills as a means to help support their family and, upon their move to England, continued to do so. In season, every Italian trattoria in town would sell pheasants, ducks, rabbits and hares in increasingly creative ways. None was a bigger hit than , two breasts of pheasant, arranged side by side and stuffed with so much cheese and mushrooms they almost burst off the plate.
