Wines of the times

The other day, I had lunch with the grandest person I know. Forget 1066: Adrian Ziani de Ferranti can trace his Venetian ancestors to the time when St Theodore was the city’s patron saint and St Mark’s corpse still reposed in Alexandria. Ziani Doges were buried under the crypt of San Zaccaria centuries before Bellini painted that church’s sublime altarpiece. John Julius Norwich believes that it is the finest painting in Venice. Were I entitled to an opinion, it might go in favour of the Titian Assumption in the Frari, but we are talking about works which transcend mere admiration: works of mastery, glory and joy.

Anyway, the Zianis were part of the fabric of la Serenissima. Their Ferranti descendants have transplanted well to the UK, heavily involved in electronics and politics. Adrian has been chairman of the Royal Institution and a Tory party treasurer. That was during IDS’s leadership: not the easiest time to raise money. Most important of all, he is an MFH. Slightly less important, he is a restaurateur.

Just behind Sloane Square, Como Lario is more than a restaurant. It is a landmark, but one that has taken various forms. When I first came across it in the late 1970s, it served Italian food which would have delighted — those who had never been to Italy. Waiters poncing around with four-foot long pepper pots and almost singing ‘O Sole Mio’, ‘Chianti’ from wickerwork cradles, food barely more sophisticated than dolloped platefuls of spag bol scoffed at the stripped pine kitchen tables of youngsters just down from university: it was fun, in its way.

A few years later, there was less fun. I ate at Como Lario a couple of times with Peter Morrison, always a sad figure who eventually became a tragic one: the PPS whose sozzled incompetence lost Mrs Thatcher the leadership election.