BTL 004: IDA, W10
SIMONETTA WENKERT, AT IDA
Simonetta Wenkert was never destined to be a chef.
‘We didn’t eat particularly well’ she says, of her childhood. It was in meeting her husband, Avi, that things changed. “Somebody has to be cooking every day. We got back late last night, I would have probably just had a slice of toast but Avi cooked. We had proper food. That was the family I married into.”
Avi was a committed home cook — he would refuse to stay in hotels when they travelled, preferring to rent apartments so he wouldn’t have to go without a kitchen. And so, in 2007 the couple bought an old corner shop in Queen’s Park and opened a restaurant.
Ida is named after Avi’s mother, an Italian “living in exile” (as Simonetta puts it) in The Levant, where he was raised. “They were both really homesick,” Simonetta tells us. “That food of Italy was a link to everything.” It’s the kind of food they still cook today: Simple, unfussy Italian fare made with quality ingredients and genuine heart.
Keeping a restaurant open, let alone successful, for nearly twenty years is no mean feat. The first eighteen months after Ida opened in 2007 were a whirlwind, Simonetta told us over dinner. After her husband, Avi, was made redundant in 2006, their longtime dream of opening a restaurant suddenly became a reality — and their livelihood. The good reviews (and celebrity clientele) came flooding in, and almost overnight the family had ended up with that most elusive of things — a successful, independently run restaurant. But in 2008 the bubble burst, and things just… stopped.
The next few years became a fight for survival. Avi even went back to university to train as a maths teacher — they needed a failsafe. Simonetta, meanwhile, found herself fighting to save a restaurant that she had only ever intended to be really be a part of for a year or so. Eventually an ultimatum arrived: sell the restaurant, or sell the house. “We’re still renting now,” Simonetta says, with a hint of a smile. She knows she made the right choice. So they persisted, Avi back in the kitchen and Simonetta running the front of house.
Ida is now something of a Queen’s Park landmark. Everyone who walks through the door seems to know Simonetta — our meal is interrupted no less than five times by satisfied locals stopping for a chat on their way out. The restaurant has no shortage of fans, among them Cillian Murphy, U2, even Megan Markle. Proper chefs come here, too: Matthew Ryle (of Maison François) and Thomas Straker are both frequent customers.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that the food is excellent. Bitter, tart salads of grapefruit, radicchio and walnut (among other delights), washed down by negronis are followed by molinata, a Puglian dip of broad beans and spinach, best served with crusty bread. It’s earthy, vegetal, well-rounded with a deep savoury undertone — it’s the kind of dish that encourages liberal dunking.
Then pasta, Ida’s specialty. Tagliatelle with a slow ragu of chicken, pork and beef is first. It’s fantastic — meaty, deeply savoury, and crack-pipe addictive. It’s followed by linguine with Devon crab and datterini tomatoes, a dish commonly seen in London’s trendier Italian restaurants, though rarely executed as well as this. Then, a second plate of tagliatelle, with a pumpkin velouté, pork and sage. The pastas here are really, really good. The commitment to making everything in house really pays off here.
We finished things off with a steak (because, honestly, why not) and a divinely glutinous panna cotta, topped off with sour berries. And a tiramisu. And another glass of wine.
This is a kind of cooking that a great many restaurants claim to offer, but that most fail to live up to. Plain and simple: it makes you feel good.
We visited Ida in December 2024. Their menu changes seasonally, so may be different if you go.