Spingere, Edgbaston

It’s weird being sat in Spingere. It’s my first time and yet it’s not; it’s a building I could navigate in the dark; one whose floorboards I know all too well. It used to be Laghi’s, my most regular of regulars, a place I’d come and sit at the bar in and have a negroni and a bowl of pasta. One that I’d treat like my own home by walking down stairs to the pasta kitchen and say hello to whoever was rolling it out to the correct thickness. My dear friend Luca opened it and ultimately closed it and I miss it dearly. Karam, a chef who worked here under Luca, Leo, Stu, and Paddy has taken it over, added some panelling and made it his own. Spingere translates directly as ‘Push’. It feels kind of apt. I’m here with Luca (and my wife, mustn’t forget her) for a catch-up in the very building I first met him in all those years ago. We drink brusk negroni made by someone who knows and understands them, and big glasses of bloody primitivo. The food is still Italian – it’s what chef knows and does…