Battersea may not be a new neighbourhood, but with all the change that’s happened down that way, it might as well be. This district in southwest London, made famous by the power station and the dogs and cats home, had, until recently seen better times. But, as is the case with many orbital London neighbourhoods, money found it. The U.S. moved in next door, the Northern Line was extended there, and the power station has been refurbished and repurposed with a beautiful mall, observation tower, and many expensive apartments both in it and around it, where merely renting one isn’t enough to get you access to certain rooftop pools.
As always with our straying around the city, we visited Battersea to eat, not to invest in property (though the European did buy some dresses in the swankiest Uniqlo I have ever seen). We visited Noci, a pasta restaurant in the power station’s Turbine Hall B. It was a sweltering day outside, and there was something very Dubai-like about escaping the summer’s evening s heat by diving into a new restaurant in a new mall lit by mood lighting, with the only view being shoppers strolling by, our soundtrack being elevator music and screaming kids.
Noci has a couple of restaurants around town (the other one being just off the food mecca that is Angel Street, in Islington) , and made their name through offering a simple but exciting looking menu of Italian produce and pasta made in house. I saw it as a funkier version of Bancone. The restaurant is unremarkable in how it looks, giving off the look of a coffee shop that would charge £six for a laaaa-tay, and is optimistically set up to seat and serve half of London at a time. When we visited, it wasn’t full, but was certainly busy.
Let’s start with the positives. You’ll going to drink well and get looked after brilliantly at Noci. Not only were the on-tap cocktails fantastic, (the European eschewed the usual Aperol Spritz for an Elderflower Collins), but the team here is one of the best I have ever seen in casual dining. Infinitely attentive, friendly, and knowledgeable about the menu, I was in awe of them from the moment we were seated to the moment we left.
Now let’s cover the less positives, which, given its absence from the last couple of paragraphs, is the food. We felt it was well, bland.
The serious business of eating started well. The house focaccia with thyme and garlic was some of the best I have had the pleasure to eat. The European made me try a traditional plate of vitello tonnato, a plate of sliced veal with tuna dressing and capers. This was a little bit different for me, but I loved the umami overload. I graciously mopped up the dressing with the focaccia. We also ordered the obligatory burrata, served with rainbow chard and chilli. This was alright, a little bit under seasoned and way too cold. Nevertheless, the accompaniments were brilliant ideas. Positive and yearning for more, we awaited the three plates of pasta we had ordered to share for mains.
The pastas were sadly tasteless to the point of us wondering if we had Covid. The brown butter cacio e pepe was the ringleader, being distinctly devoid of pepe, and cacio as well, it seemed. The European asked for salt and pepper and covered all three plates in it. I remember when I was a waiter in an Italian restaurant. Being asked for the salt and pepper was always an exhausting sign that the diners weren’t doing too great.
Pappardelle with beef shin ragù was little better, offering little substance and none of the guilty, excessive richness you expect with this hearty dish. Silk handkerchiefs with summer vegetables, walnuts and egg yolk were a lot more successful. Though they were insanely tasty and a bona fide celebration of summer, the irony of sitting in a dark power station to enjoy it was not lost on me. I gifted most of it to The European, who was pining for the cacio e pepe and the ragù more than I.
Coffee and dessert were next. Well, I had a dessert, The European was done with the food and had an espresso. There wasn’t a lot to choose from, but the plant-based chocolate mousse looked the best option. “Just so you know, this is vegan, so it come out a bit different“, was the warning from our waitress. I wouldn’t have said it was that different from any other chocolate mousse in terms of consistency or appearance, but once again the dish simply fell flat, the flecks of Maldon Sea Salt salvaging some of the comforting feelings that a sweet treat is supposed to provide.
Suffice to say, the power station provided us with most of the entertainment and excitement that evening. It is amazing what they’ve done with the place, a true example of what can be achieved when money is no object. Noci is slick and trendy enough to fit right in here, no questions asked. I also welcomed the nostalgic wafts of being in a place that kicked up more than its far share of memories of my time in the U.A.E. After all, I spent most weekends in Dubai sitting in posh malls, being looked after by awesome people, eating food that could have been better than it was.
Visited on 1st July 2023.
Three starters, three pasta dishes, one dessert, and a couple of rounds of cocktails, came to around £one hundred and twenty.
The food thing. 
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