San Lorenzo (restaurant)

Lorenzo Berni, an Italian steward on cruise ships and former partisan, arrived in London in 1960 following the sinking of his Norwegian merchant ship. He found work behind the bar of a pub in Soho before becoming the manager of La Taverna Spaghetti Garden in Kensington Grove. He married Maria "Mara" Theresa Lasilier less than a year later. The restaurant had no alcohol licence in the early days and customers could bring their own wine or ask Lorenzo Berni to go to a nearby pub for them. A sycamore tree grew in the courtyard of the restaurant. When it died it was carved into a sculpture Labyrinth by Joe Tilson. Mara Berni would inquire after diners' astrological signs and attempt to divine their fortunes through her supposed psychic abilities. In 1986, the restaurant was decorated by Sasha Gebler, the son of the novelist Edna O'Brien. Artworks displayed in the restaurant in 1988 included "Babe Rainbow" by Peter Blake and an Andy Warhol painting from his Marilyn Monroe portfolio. The heyday of the restaurant was the 1980s and 1990s. Lorenzo Berni was also expected to be fined almost £200,000. In July 2025, the building was occupied by squatters who described themselves as "a collective of individuals in a state of homelessness". ==Notable patrons==

A 2003 profile described San Lorenzo as "London's celebrity canteen" with "Rock legends and movie stars, playboys and supermodels, sporting heroes and royals". The Genoese Consul, Count Paolo Valfre' di Bonzo brought actress Sophia Loren to dine in 1963 while she was filming in London. Loren also visited San Lorenzo while making her 1967 film A Countess from Hong Kong. She dined with twelve men seated on a long table and the ensuing publicity made the restaurant's reputation. Quentin Crewe claimed to have seen the Italian ambassador to the Court of St James's at the restaurant in the mid 1960s. Mara Berni recalled the ambassador as regularly visiting with his mistress as well with his wife and six children. On one occasion, his mistress's false eyelashes fell into her soup, which she promptly ate. Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland were early celebrity patrons of San Lorenzo and brought Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon to dine there. The model Jill Kennington recalled seeing Michelangelo Antonioni in the restaurant as he was preparing to make Blowup. Lorenzo Berni believed that the cinematic styles of the Italian film directors who ate at San Lorenzo were reflected in their eating habits. Berni described Antonioni who made "very complicated films" as eating "little complicated food ...chopped up small"; Federico Fellini whose films were "big and lucious and strong" would have pasta and a T-bone steak, Francesco Rosi who was "very much of the left ... looked at his food as if he didn't care" and Luchino Visconti "the perfectionist" would always have an "aperitif, then starter, first course, second course, sweet coffee, liqueur ... all perfectly organised like his films". San Lorenzo was also favoured by the Italian football managers Luca Vialli and Fabio Capello. Twiggy celebrated her 21st birthday at the restaurant. The tennis player Boris Becker would always order tagliata di manzo (rare sliced fillet with rocket and mashed potatoes) the evening before his Wimbledon Championships finals matches. The Rolling Stones dined at San Lorenzo after their The Stones in the Park concert in 1969. An October 1988 lunchtime saw businessman Gordon White at a corner table "surrounded by pretty girls", Bruce Oldfield, Michael Roberts and Manolo Blahnik dined together with Rifat Ozbek and the fashion designer Nadia la Valle of Spaghetti. Diana's biographer Andrew Morton wrote that Berni "painted a portrait of Diana's lonely, sorrowful life" and Diana was impressed by the accuracy of Berni's observations and her perception regarding her future. The group included Phillip Dunne, army officers David Waterhouse and Rory Scott and James Gilbey. The actor Terrance Stamp became friends with Diana after meeting her when dining with her sons at the restaurant. Paparazzi photographers following Diana would sit on the opposite side of the street to San Lorenzo while waiting for her, eating falafel wraps in the Moroccoan restaurant Maroush. Diana also used the restaurant to meet journalists. Anthony Holden recalled being told to come to San Lorenzo and being seated next to an empty table with flowers which was promptly occupied by Diana and William and Harry and their nanny. Diana then invited Holden to lunch with them and gave him off-the-record messages. Diana's butler Paul Burrell held a celebratory dinner at San Lorenzo after receiving the Royal Victorian Medal from Queen Elizabeth II in 1997. Mara Berni's obituary in The Times wrote that she and Diana "fell out" before Diana's death. ==Reception==

Early dishes at the restaurant included pigeon with polenta and sea bass which was then considered a rarity in Britain. Eighteen months after San Lorenzo opened Quentin Crewe wrote in Queen magazine that "No one before had so perfectly created in London the kind of backstreet trattoria that you would find in every Italian town". "Mario", a former chef at San Lorenzo, opened his restaurant 13 1/2 on Beauchamp Place in 1969. A 1969 review of 13 1/2 by Beryl Hartland in the Daily Telegraph described Mario as having made San Lorenzo the "top place for splendid peasant Italian food". A 1997 review by David Fingleton for The Spectator on the "overpriced restaurants" of Quaglino's, Daphne's, Langan's Brasserie and San Lorenzo concluded that at San Lorenzo it was a "pleasure to sit there, service was attentive, cooking correct, and Mara clearly cares". In a 1998 review of Floriana, another Italian restaurant on Beaucamp Place, A.A. Gill wrote that he was saving reviewing San Lorenzo until he was "suicidally depressed" as it was "all things considered, quite the worst restaurant in London, maybe the world". Gill wrote that the popularity of San Lorenzo proved F. Scott Fitzgerald's "first law of society" that "the rich and famous really are different". Gill wrote that San Lorenzo served "horrendous food, grudgingly, in a dining room that is a museum to Italian waiters' taste circa 1976". Gill wrote that to enter the restaurant "you have to be kissed by a woman called Mara, who must surely have been around to do tongues with Garibaldi" before being led into the dining room to view the "collection of poseurs, pimps, phoney counts, lounge lizards, poodle fakers, ageing gigolos and remittance men who have all been bussed ahead of you. And it makes you feel faint with queasiness". Simon Mills wrote upon its closure that "The final grissini breadstick has been un-sheafed, the last pap bulb flashed. It is the end of an era and a pasta primavera". Jonathan Meades described the patrons in 1994 as "Arms dealers, horizontals, rock legends, educationally subnormal royals, ladies who lunch, rag trade morons, ladies who shop, actors, supermodels. This Is a holy site for International White Trash. If you have not appeared in Hello! you might as well forget It since the charmless staff will do their utmost to ignore you. The cooking is not the point of the place — which is just as well". ==See also==