Gran Sasso
Bright, bitter, built for the first ten sticks.
5.2%Abruzzo street food in London
Lamb skewers from the mountains of Abruzzo, grilled over live coal and eaten by the ten.
0
Sticks eaten
Tap a skewer on the grill to eat it. Drag across the coals to fan them.
Italy has a region London hasn't met yet.
It's called Abruzzo. Mountains that hold snow into June. A coast lined with fishing huts on stilts. A shepherd culture so old it built its own roads.
Its most famous food fits on a stick. We brought the stick, the fire and the attitude.
The Rustell
In Abruzzo they're called arrosticini. In dialect, a single one is a rustell. Put it over a fire hot enough and you get Rusthell.
Small cubes of mutton, threaded on a thin wooden stick, cooked in under two minutes over coal. Nothing else. No marinade, no sauce, no plate.
1
Fingertip cubes
Cut small on purpose (shown here raw): crisp outside, juicy inside, cooked in the time it takes to open a beer.
2
Fat in between
It drips on the coal, flares up, and the smoke flavours every piece above it.
3
Thin wooden stick
Hold it like a pen, pull the meat off with your teeth. No knife, no fork, no plate.
4
Keep it
Empty sticks go back in the tin. At the end, we count them. That's your bill.
Where from
The hills under the Gran Sasso, central Italy. Shepherds walking flocks between mountain and coast needed food that was fast, cheap and cooked on whatever fire they had.
What meat
Traditionally castrato: mutton from sheep raised on open pasture. Deeper than lamb, cleaner than you'd think, perfect over high heat.
How it's served
Standing up in a tin, ten at a time, with bread soaked in olive oil. Salt goes on at the very end. Then you order ten more.
No gas.
No grill pan.
Just coal.
Arrosticini are cooked on a fornacella: a long, narrow steel trough, just wide enough for the meat, with the ends of the sticks resting on both rims.
The coal sits a hand's width below. The cook fans it, turns the whole row in one move, and the fat does the rest. Gas can't make that smoke. That's why we don't use it.
- Cut
Mutton into fingertip cubes, fat kept on.
- Thread
Lean, lean, fat. Repeat. Tight on the stick.
- Fan
Coal glowing orange, never flaming.
- Turn
The whole row at once, every thirty seconds.
- Salt
Only at the end, straight onto the hot meat.
- Eat
Immediately. Standing up is fine.
Shepherd food.
City hours.
In Abruzzo, arrosticini are eaten standing around a fire after a long day outside. London eats standing up after a long day at work.
Same hunger, different weather. So we kept the fire, the stick and the dialect, and dropped them in the middle of London: loud music, cold beer, sticks piling up on the counter.
Grease, smoke, iron
Photo: RaBoe, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
Cold iron
Hot coal needs cold beer. Ours comes from small Abruzzese breweries, brewed with mountain water and poured cold enough to hurt.
Concept line-up. The real breweries we pour will be announced with the opening.
Transumanza
Malty and toasted, for the long walk to fifty.
6.0%Maiella Smoke
A little beechwood smoke to echo the grill.
4.8%Adriatica
Cloudy, citrusy, sea air in a can.
4.5%House rules
- Hands, not forks.
- Order by the ten.
- Keep your sticks.
- Salt at the end.
- Bread and oil, always.
- Don't share. Order more.
Post your pile
Photograph your empty sticks, tag @rusthell and #postyourpile. The biggest pile of the month eats free the month after.
Your pile here
Your pile here
Your pile here
Your pile here
Your pile here
Instagram feed and guest reviews will appear here after opening.
Find the fire
London. Address landing soon. Follow the smoke.
- Wed – Thu
- 17:00 – 23:00
- Fri – Sat
- 12:00 – 00:00
- Sun
- 12:00 – 21:00
- Mon – Tue
- Coal's resting
Placeholder hours.
Location & directions