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Wine List of the Week: Sale e Pepe Mare

26 May 2026 By Douglas Blyde

At Sale e Pepe Mare in The Langham, Douglas Blyde finds a grand Italian revival where polished service, coastal cooking, and serious wine ambition steer a Knightsbridge institution elegantly seawards.

Set within The Langham, billed as Europe’s first “Grand Hotel” (1865), Sale e Pepe Mare is continuation, not invention. And for Finnish-born Markus Thesleff, it is also personal. The 1974 original Sale e Pepe, abutting Harrods and Harvey Nichols, visited in childhood, forms part of his dining lexicon. Before the doors opened, Luchford PR staged a hard hat and caviar party making the point that in good company, with cold champagne, and freshly stirred Negroni, interior design recedes to a supporting role.

The room, however, is dazzling. Manuela Hamilford overlays Italian fabrics and a wash of azzurro blue across a space which has seen turnover. Mimosa came and went before the bouquet of fluffy, yellow blooms sent to your reviewer on opening expired. Before that, Roux at The Landau held court, and the room appeared in Burnt, where Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller moved through a version of London hospitality composed for the lens. What remains is structure. Corinthian columns survive in part, albeit pushed behind new walls, a casualty of stiff preservation rules, while fluted timber, marble, and brass work to tame the scale. Even the soundtrack does its part – Julio Iglesias’ Moralito (La Gota Fría) drifting through.

One Google reviewer offered “Best Italian I’ve eaten in London” despite not ordinarily giving “100% reviews to anyone”, while SquareMeal found “a masterclass in ambience”. Thesleff, whose career spans London and Dubai, calls himself a “custodian”, yet speaks with urgency. In a recent interview with The Standard, he described London as “crushed in a number of different areas”, warning entrepreneurs risk “being punished for being successful”. His portfolio reads less like a collection than a series of calibrated bets: Los Mochis for velocity and volume, Viajante87 for drinks-led credibility, JUNO Omakase and LUNA Omakase for ingriediental evangelism, and now MA/NA, in the former Rüya site.

Drinks

Curated by group head of wine and sake, Michele Orbolato (Medlar, Oblix, Petersham Nurseries, Le Pont de La Tour), and realised on the floor by Rome-raised Diego Casanova (Quattro Passi, Zuma, Bottles, Sale e Pepe), the list presents itself as a tribute to Italy’s wine heritage, housed within a tunnel of handsome refrigerated cabinets.

By the glass, reassurance leads. Champagne Henriot magnums, Ruinart Blanc de Blancs, and Dom Pérignon 2015 sit alongside Ca’ del Bosco, poured from a custom cart with spinning ice buckets, before the shift into Gavi from La Scolca and Cervaro della Sala.

By the bottle, Northern Italy is handled with care – La Giustiniana Lugarara and Montessora Gavi, Giovanni Almondo Roero Arneis, Massolino Chardonnay – before moving east through Jermann, Vie di Romans, Livio Felluga, and Terlan. Further south, Valentini Trebbiano 2020, Guido Marsella Fiano, and Pietracupa Greco deepen the frame. Burgundy is positioned alongside, with Leflaive, Ramonet, and Jacques Prieur at the apex, and Chablis running from Vrignaud to Laroche Grand Cru.

Prestige here is always sits close to the surface. Dom Pérignon reaches P2 2004 and Rosé 2003. Gaja runs from Rossj-Bass to Barbaresco 2003 and Brunello di Montalcino 2001 (Pieve Santa Restituta). Antinori stretches Tignanello back to 2014, alongside Solaia, while Sassicaia 2015 and 2016, Ornellaia 2019, and Masseto 2013 complete the upper tier.

Absences are clear. Grower champagne barely registers. Spain is quiet, Germany intermittent, Austria slight. English wine appears through Nyetimber, without wider framing. Skin-contact wines – Denavolo, La Stoppa, Occhipinti – are listed, but rarely, it seems, pushed.

Cocktails, under beverage director, Pietro Collina, move differently. If the wine list explains, the bar performs. A quintet of Negroni, shaped with input from ebullient marketing director, Mark Sansom – formerly of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and Food & Travel, where he was known for sending handwritten thank you cards to contributors – includes a 1970s version built tableside.

Dishes

Around us sat well-dressed guests, including a small boy in blazer and pocket square, already dressed for a hostile takeover of nursery. We began with Sale e Pepe’s own olive oil – naturally available to buy – into which balsamic was poured from a genie-like vessel, beside warm, springy focaccia. Then came Casanova, double-breasted, asking, “How much do you want to drink?” before treating our request to taste sparingly as an error in translation.

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Gaja’s Vistamare 2023 opened in William Yeoward glassware. We were, Casanova said, “looking at the coast via the glass – salinity, freshness,” before delivering a neat act of producer theology: “Angelo Gaja has the Midas touch. Everything he touches turns to gold.” The wine met a duet of crudo on William Edwards plates made specially for Sale e Pepe: halibut with lemon curd, yuzu kosho, lemon and olive oil; then scallop Carpaccio with radish and the gradual, intelligent heat of smoked chilli. From the Josper: Veraci clams, with wet wipes branded with the Knightsbridge original’s details – useful, nostalgic, and probably the only acceptable form of restaurant merchandise during a clam course.

For squid, herb-marinated, coal-kissed and properly meaty, with the tonic bitterness of artichoke, Casanova moved to Pieropan Calvarino 2022, a volcanic Soave from vineyards as neat as this hotel. Of Pieropan, he remembered meeting the brothers: “The good one looks after hosting and the bad one gets his hands dirty in the vineyards during the day, then appears with a magnum of Amarone at night – and we started drinking.”

The dish of the lunch was king crab tagliarini: slim, sticky strands, rich without cream, the crab worked through the pasta. Despite “not being a fan of Sancerre normally,” Casanova chose Henri Bourgeois Jadis 2022, an old-vine, oak-handled Sancerre with greater breadth than the usual green-glass whistle. “Jadis means once upon a time,” he said. “This one sees oak.” Then, with absolute conviction: “It’s the son of the terroir.” The crab and wine shared their Kimmeridgian inheritance, he concluded.

Marinated veal followed, cut from the rib-eye, scented with rosemary and served with an Anton Black steak knife handsome enough to require a licence and rival the armoury of the nearby Wallace Collection. “No fighting,” said the table captain. The veal arrived pink without negotiation – bravo – and drew three reds. Domaine de Montille Pommard Les Cras 2021 brought ripeness; G.D. Vajra Barolo Albe 2022 felt more pinched, as if still reading the room; Fontodi’s Chianti Classico Gran Selezione from Panzano had the best manners with the meat: pure Sangiovese, dark cherry, velvet, served correctly well below room temperature.

Finally, an exact Amalfi lemon tart, sharp. With it came Donnafugata Ben Ryé 2023 from Pantelleria. Casanova translated the name as “son of the wind,” from the Arabic, before placing the island for us: “Almost Africa – but it belongs to Sicily.” The wine had orange peel, apricot, and sea air, a liquid resumé from somewhere closer to Tunis than Turin. It ended the meal in character: coastal, fluent, and carried along by a sommelier who could probably sell a life raft to Neptune.

Last Sip

Sale e Pepe Mare is not a mere brand extension in borrowed tailoring. It is a restaurant which understands the original, keeps its confidence, then sends it seawards with appetite and care. This matters in London, where Italian openings do not always arrive with much beyond flattering light, burrata, and a hopeful truffle supplement. Here, the past is present without becoming a waxwork.

The room moves with assurance: anticipatory service, a dessert trolley which restores the pleasure of choosing by eye, and Casanova pouring, narrating, flattering and digressing without making diners feel mugged.

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