Private Dining Rooms

Overview

Located on stylish Savile Row, Sartoria boasts two elegant private dining rooms, offering the ability to cater for all types of events. Whether you are planning an impressive social dinner, high profile meeting or a drink and canapé reception to celebrate a special occasion with friends, Sartoria can cater to all your needs.

For a seated breakfast, lunch or dinner each room can accommodate up to 24 guests. Alternatively both rooms can be combined to accommodate larger parties up to 48 guests.  The rooms are separated from each other by a natural oak acoustic wall, and divided from the main restaurant by sliding oak and sand-blasted glass panels. The doors can offer total seclusion or they can be left open so that your guests can take in the ambience of the restaurant.

Head Chef Lukas Pfaff cooks Italian food that is every bit as elegant and sophisticated as the restaurant interior and guests can enjoy dishes such as roast monkfish with tropea onion marmalade and crispy parma ham and ayrshire rose veal Milanese with spinach and lemon.

Lukas Pfaff

How long have you been at the restaurant?

Since November 2010

Which was the first restaurant you worked in?

My Father’s hotel in the Black Forest, Germany.

What was the last London restaurant you went to, apart from your own?

Plateau, I’m afraid another D&D restaurant, but we like to keep it in the family! They have just had a wonderful refurbishment and received a fantastic food award, so I went to indulge.

What or who has been the biggest influence on the way you cook and why?

The slow food movement in Italy has changed my perception on how I view food in conjunction with nature and sustainability. It is incredibly interesting to see how unsustainable agriculture has altered the natural path of a food item, and I like to ensure that my way of cooking and the products I use are true to the essence of the ingredients.

What is your personal signature dish?

It changes as I develop and grow as a chef. One of my favourites would be Spaghetti Alla Chitarra with Datterino Tomatoes, Rocket Leaves and Cured Pork Cheek. It’s incredibly simple but that’s one of the reasons I love it.

Which other chef's) do you most admire?

Alice Waters from California she is involved in the slow food movement which I admire greatly.

What’s the best part of your job?

Using all my senses, all the time. 

And the worst?

Not getting enough sleep!

What would your last meal be?

Grilled Langoustine, Amalfi Lemons, a bowl of Wild Leaf Salad and Heirloom Tomatoes and, to accompany this, a bottle of Vermentino di Gallura ‘Canayli’ from Sardinia.

Do you have a chef’s shortcut that you can share with us?

When making simple spaghetti and tomato try adding one or two salted anchovies instead of additional salt. You will find it transform your dish into something with much more flavour, and I can guarantee it wont be fishy.
 

Michael Simms

How long have you been at the restaurant?

Five years.

What attracted you to become a sommelier?

It was an accident. I was working at the Grand Hotel in Brighton and a waiter who was scheduled to do a wine course at Brighton Polytechnic fell ill. I was sent in his place. It was only a short course for adult beginners with no certificate at the end but the two lecturers who ran the course were so good that I wanted to learn more. It was they who suggested studying seriously with the Wine and Spirit Education Trust.

Where did you do your training?

Brighton Poly (see above), WSET (certificate and higher certificate), trade tastings, trade press, visits to vineyards etc.

What would you say were the essential skills required to be a sommelier?

I don’t know whether one would class them as ‘skills’ but I think it essential (1) to love food and drink so that learning and talking about them is always a pleasure and never becomes a chore and (2) to listen carefully to what a customer says before recommending a wine.

What are your thoughts on the "Red wine with red meat, white wine with white meat and fish" age-old debate?

Like all generalizations there is a certain amount of sense in it and I would say that, for me, tannic red wine served with shellfish is a definite no, no as it makes both taste nastily metallic. But due to the use of much more international ingredients, I am thinking particularly of fusion food, and modern recipes in general (not to mention the wide variety of wines on the market) you can find reds that often complement fish and whites that complement red meat. One final point is that normally when you eat and drink you very rarely, if ever, have the wine and food in your mouth at the same time so most people choose a wine they like and the food they like. Some of the greatest red wines I have ever served have been chosen by someone who has also chosen dover sole and spinach. Not the greatest combination but thoroughly enjoyed nonetheless.

How does the choice of the right wines complement the different food courses served?

This complement is sometimes called a marriage and, like marriage, wine and food pairings can work on similarity or contrast. When I try out an idea is one of the few times I have wine and food together in my mouth at the same time. If I chew them together, swallow, close my mouth and breathe back through my nose I find it easier to tell why the two complement each other or not. Ideally one is looking for the taste of both the food and wine to linger and, if possible, meld into a taste more enjoyable than the food or wine alone. If you find two flavours that clash this is obviously a bad choice but often either the wine or the food will overpower the taste of the other. If you like both tastes this is not unacceptable for a meal but it is not perfect – unless you REALLY like both tastes. I also find it useful sometimes thinking of wine as if it were a condiment e.g. would I prefer a squeeze of lemon (crisp white) or red berries (fruity red) with my fish?

What's the best part of your job?

Apart from getting paid to go to tastings and visit vineyards, it is being told by a customer that I have helped to make their meal memorable.

And the worst?

Helping to wash up loads of glasses well after midnight at the end of an exclusive hire when you are longing for bed.

What is the most unusual wine that you have ever tasted and why?

I suppose that would be a white wine from the Medoc that was dry but, due to an abnormally high sugar content in the grapes from one parcel of vines that year, the owners decided to make a few barrels of sweet wine for private interest.

What is the most money that you’ve ever seen spent on a single bottle?

At the Savoy about two thousand pounds but here at Sartoria about five hundred. I have never been interested in working with bottles priced more than this.

How many wines do you have?

About two hundred

How often do you find that customers complain about wine being corked and - in your opinion - how often do you think that they are right?

Hopefully I notice the taint before they do but now and again they do mention it and they are almost always correct. Some people use the word ‘corked’ when they mean there is something wrong with a wine and usually they are also correct. I would say that since the wider use of ‘stelvin’ closures or screwcaps I have noticed a decrease in the amount of corked bottles.