Popular Posts

Thursday 19 February 2015

The Italian Job, Chiswick

Order a machete in London's grittier faubourgs; they'll bring you a bad ass blade. But in bucolic, bourgeois Chiswick, chances are the locals will recognise Machete as the dreamy pint they sank last summer on that perfect day in Parma, whence this punchy 7.5% abv American-style IPA hails. One of the four co-owners of 'London's first Italian craft beer bar' - a dozen regularly rotated ales on tap and countless bottles from Europe's boot - is a certain Signor Campari who doubles, ironically, not as a maker of red bitters but of rather fine beers at Birrificio del Ducato, his microbrewery in Emilia-Romagna. The four raggazzi behind this interesting venture, launched with love on Valentine's Day 2015, have remodelled what used to be Pickwick's wine bar. If the new interior is Italian in style, it sure as hell wasn't put together by rococo leather bag/ designer Donatella Turtle. All bare brick and barrels, it looks like the sort of howf used for sheltering sheep in the Sienna hinterland's hills. Also worth noting, is New Morning -  Campari's bottle-fermented Belgian-style beer with its distinctive ginger, camomile, coriander and green peppercorn nose. If you're looking for beers to "blow the bloody doors off" as Charlie Croker puts it in the cult flick that inspired the bar's handle, this Italian may be just the job!
13 Devonshire Road W4 2EU http://www.theitalianjobpub.co.uk