Archway, Battersea Park

Firstly, I have a confession to make. Many years ago I was very kindly treated to lunch at the River Café in Hammersmith, and I didn't like it. I think I was mainly intimidated - by the well-heeled crowd, the scale and the power of that vast dining room and open kitchen, and yes, by the prices, astronomical figures seemingly chosen only to be as shocking as possible to anyone who wasn't a multi-millionare. I gave it a rather grumpy review, then vowed never to return.

Years later, though, I did go back. The River Cafe staff are given very generous discounts from time to time, and encouraged to bring along anyone they want to share the fun. So, curious to see if they - or indeed I - had changed over the years, I found myself taking an afternoon off and joining a staffer friend for lunch.

And I had the time of my life. Everything was briliant, from the atmosphere in that cavernous room to the friendly but extremely capable staff to the exquisitely tasteful and seasonal wood-grilled Italian food, it seemed to be the kind of place where it would be impossible not to enjoy yourself unless you had a giant wood-fired chip on your shoulder, and I felt incredibly stupid for having denied myself it all these years. And if you're thinking "well, he would like it as he wasn't paying", guess what - as soon as that lunch was over I made myself another booking in a couple of weeks' time and paid in full. And I had the time of my life all over again.

So what's all this got to do with Archway? Well, most obviously, it was set up by ex-River Cafe staff, and if nothing else the Hammersmith place has a fantastic track record of sending out its alumni to propagate fantastic pasta around the country. We have them to thank for such names as Sonny Stores in Bristol, Trullo in Islington, and the sadly-departed Zucca in Bermondsey, although we do also have them to blame for Jamie Oliver so the less said about that the better. Anyway, now SW11 has its own little slice of Tuscany-on-the-Thames, and on a wet Wednesday evening I headed down an unlikely dark alleyway underneath Battersea Park station to see if it could carry on the noble tradition.

From an attractively short and straightforward menu, first to arrive were flatbreads, fresh out of a wood-fired oven, one topped with leeks soaked in "brown crab meat butter" (that's poetry right there) and another with gorgonzola, figs and honey. In both, the bread was the star - full of life and crunch and comfort - and though I obviously preferred the one topped with "brown crab meat butter" (I mean, duh), they were both very impressive bits of baking. A good start.

But it was with the arrival of the first pasta dish that Archway really flexed its River Café muscles. Cavatelli with beef ragu was - and I'm not using these words lightly - completely and utterly perfect. Perfect pasta with a perfect bite, a perfect tomato-red wine sauce studded with rich ground beef, perfectly seasoned, perfectly served. Yes, you'd hope a modern Italian restaurant with such a pedigree should be able to knock out a decent bowl of pasta but this was clearly a world class bit of cooking, astonishingly good.

Equally good - and so yes, perfect again - was pappardelle with mushrooms, brown butter and sage, another heavenly combination of bouncy fresh ribbons of pasta, seasonal funghi and heady herbs all soaked in a silky buttery sauce. As a not-very-good cook myself, and particularly when it comes to fresh pasta, I find it hard to pinpoint exactly what sets the good pasta restaurants apart from the great, apart from the fact that some make me pleasantly surprised, and some make me with giddy with utter joy. Archway fits in the latter group.

Fregola "risotto" (fregola are little balls of pasta a bit like tapioca, but nicer obviously) was the base for a selection of fresh clams and mussels studded with just enough chilli to provide and nice buzz above the seafood. There's something incredibly satisfying about eating a forkful of fregola soaked in salty seafood broth, lighter than a risotto but packing the same flavour punch. Dangerously moreish.

As possibly one of the finest pasta restaurants in the country, you really don't need another reason to visit the place. But I'm happy to report that a giant butterflied mackerel was a great demonstration of Archway's skill with grilled fish. The mackerel itself was immaculate, with a dark, crisp skin holding a good amount of fat next to soft and perfectly-timed flesh, and though it would have been nice to have crunchy cubes of toast instead of soggy tomato-bread, the "panzanella" salad dressing was otherwise very nice.

Desserts were generous of portion and of flavour. The strawberry creme brulee was my own favourite, topped with chunks of steeped berries so full of summer colour they practically glowed. And although to this day we couldn't quite decide every ingredient that formed the "torta della nonna" (and completely forgot to ask at the time), the custard filling was expertly balanced by a nice delicate pastry crust. And that's probably all you need to know.

In the interests of this post not turning into a completely two-dimensional gush-fest, I feel duty-bound to point out two things I didn't quite get at Archway. Firstly, the wine list is presented in a font so miniscule, and the lighting in the room was so "romantic", that nobody on our table could read it, so we ended up just pointing at a price and hoping for the best. Fortunately, the Archway's choice of house white is as tasteful as the rest of their operation, so all ended well. Secondly, there are two identical unmarked doors off the main dining room; one leads to the toilets, the other to a store cupboard and office. So there's a potential problem there.

But I am nitpicking, and the fact is there's very little to fault about Archway. Service was friendly and enthusiastic, the room is nicely proportioned (although I think some would find the tables a little too close together, depending on your elbow-room requirements) and the vast open kitchen, stretching back three times as far as the dining room is long, as far as I could gather, is a wonderful focal point and endlessly entertaining as you watch bits and pieces being moved in and out of the wood ovens and grills. And at £64pp it's even at the lower end of the London 2023 restaurant budget spectrum. But never mind all that - just go and eat the pasta. Everything else is a footnote.

9/10