Lina Stores in Brewer Street, conveniently located between my office and The Duke of Argyll is one of the last bastions of Soho's once thriving Italian community. Tony and Gabriella have run the store for years, and it's pretty well my favourite deli, worldwide.
Tony makes his own (pork and red wine) sausages, and heaps of different tortellinis (crayfish, pumpkin and ricotta, spinach and ricotta, veal, etc, etc) daily. As well as a huge range of everything Italian (except booze), you can get a fantastic sandwich with freshly cut meat, cheese, tomatoes, rocket, etc etc for what is probably the best value in central London.
Time Out sez:
"Lina Stores
With its pistachio-coloured façade and 1930s lettering, this shop is an unmistakable old-timer. It was first opened around the corner, and relocated to its current site after World War II. The Filippis, from Piacenza, near Milan, bought the shop in 1974 when the original owner (the eponymous Lina) retired and it’s now run by Tony and Gabriella Filippi as a family business. They have not altered the decor, and its layout remains as it was in the ’40s, with long counters stretching the length of the shop, behind which are shelves piled high with wonderful Italian delights. Tony makes fresh pasta on-site daily, and sells it on to restaurants in Soho. The recipe for his popular garlic and wine sausages comes from his home town in Italy and was handed down to him by a local butcher when he was ten years old. The delicatessen is well known and much loved, and used regularly by TV chefs Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson.
Lina Stores, 18 Brewer St, W1 (020 7437 6482) Piccadilly Circus tube."
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3 comments:
My late mother Mrs. Edeltraud Nutt (Chief Librarian at the Geological Society of London, Burlington House) LOVED to shop at Lina Stores and how we LOVED the foodstuffs she bought from the shop she served us with her amazing meals over many years whilst living in London. She could easily have had her own TV cooking show! When she retired and moved to live in Yorkshire, I would buy her favourite foodstuffs from the shop and either post them on or give them to her when I visited. Long may Lina Stores continue!!!
My Mum is Italian and has been buying at Lina's since the 1960s - I loved going there with her. It's still the best Italian deli in Britain. Wish I could go more often (I live in Yorkshire now) but my niece gets our supplies! She loves going there, and I know why!
Apparently Tony has sold the store. I hope the new proprietors are carrying it on just as it was.
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