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Bocca di Lupo
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By Elena Berton
In superstitious Italy no one will ever wish you good luck. Instead, they will tell you in bocca al lupo (literally, ‘into the mouth of the wolf’). There are plenty of opportunities to learn peculiar Italian idioms at Bocca di Lupo, especially if you check out the loos, where the walls are decorated with culinary proverbs helpfully translated into English. But the main reason for visiting this new Soho Italian should be the chance to experience an outstanding gastronomic tour of most of Italy’s 20 regions, preferably perched next to the long white-marble counter with a full view of the kitchen.
Chef Jacob Kenedy, who previously worked at Moro, has borrowed the degustation concept now obligatory in French and Spanish restaurants and applied it to Italian regional cuisine. The result is a daily changing offering of starter-sized servings of skilfully prepared regional specialities – which the impeccably trained staff will suggest you mix and share – or larger portions for those who prefer a more traditional Italian meal.
The seasonal menu currently favours robust, comforting fare from northern and central Italy, with highlights such as plump porcini nestled on a wedge of grilled yellow polenta and topped with lardo di Colonnata, the melt-in-the-mouth cured lard from Tuscany.
Other must-try dishes, which seldom appear on restaurant menus in London, are crisp-fried artichokes, a Jewish-Roman speciality; or the crescent-shaped fried bread from Bologna accompanied by fluffy squacquerone cheese and fennel-fragranced salami.
Another timely treat (and nice superstitious touch) is the unctuous cotechino sausage with lentils, which is traditionally served around new year. Because lentils symbolise money, the more you eat, the richer you will supposedly grow in the coming year.
Those who have grown tired of tiramisu and panna cotta can look forward to more regional discoveries. If there’s no room for the luscious Sicilian cassata, a glassful of burnt almond granita with a bitter chocolate sorbet is a lighter, but equally indulgent, conclusion to a remarkable meal.
On our visit, just over a week after opening, the dining room was justifiably full. Despite Bocca di Lupo’s understated luxe atmosphere and outstanding food, prices are surprisingly lower than those of many so-called aspirational Italian restaurants in central London. As they say in Italy, botte buona fa buon vino (a good cask makes good wine).Time Out December 2008
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Time Out reviews restaurants anonymously and pays for meals. Of course, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or independence of user reviews.
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Details
- 12 Archer Street, Soho, W1D 7BB
- Area: Soho
- Tel: 7734 2223
- www.boccadilupo.com
- Book online
- Category: Italian
- Travel: Piccadilly Circus tube
- Times: 12.30-3pm, 5.30-11pm Mon-Sat
- Price: Meal for two including wine and service: around £70
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Bocca di Lupo is great. Have visited numerous times since it opened and, as someone who travels to Italy almost once a month, the food consistently measures up against anything I've eaten there. However, I think it has become a vicitm of its own success as the last time I was there with a group of friends we had to wait over 20 minutes for our table, despite the fact that we had a booking. Ths was for 9.45pm so we weren't seated until well after 10pm. With blood sugar levels plummeting we were all decidedly grumpy by the time we were seated and I'm reluctant to repeat the experience.
I went there today and really enjoyed my time there. The staff were very friendly and the food was gorgeous..
We arrived at 6pm and were seated immediately. Two staff offered to take my suitcase and my coat away. We were offered some bread and olives -- the olives were the best I've tasted in years!
I was told the daily special was pan fried scallop. I ordered that and together with a few other small dishes.
That scallop is the freshest I have tasted and I have been to many sushi bar including Sushi Hiro and Kiraku.
Our squid was exceptional too -- very fresh, sweet, juicy and tender. It was not chewy at all and the flavour was heavenly..
I do admit the food is not 100% traditional Italian but to me, if I have a great time because of excellent service and if the food is very fresh and it tastes GREAT, that's what it counts!
9 out of 10!
Andrew
Menu is interesting and varied, food delicious, although slightly on the pricey side in places. Service was a bit slow at times, however it was fully booked and very busy. Very sociable and quite a buzz about the place!
a little gem of a place, no wonder you need to book weeks in advance to get a table at a decent time for dinner. would love to come back and sit near the action on the stools...
very friendly staff and nice atmosphere , the food and the serving portiones were good but the menue lacked variety and a bit overpriced
Overall, very good. Food is interesting and delicious, the wine list has lots of characterful Italian wines with a bearable mark-up, and the service is charming in a well-spaced room. Be careful how you order, as the menu lists everything in two sizes, which is great, but created confusion for us, as we thought they'd bring stuff in a classic antipasti-pasta-main sequence. They thought we were sharing everything and brought it as it was ready. We should have said and they might have asked. Wine took longer than it should have done to arrive, and (for me) too many dishes had industrial quantities of rosemary. I'll go again, but probably with someone at the bar rather than with an indecisive group. Five of us spent £385 for lunch, but we 'ad the lot.
Maybe I sound too keen on Bocca di Lupo... I can't help! It is like being a teeneger infatuated with his classmate.... lol!....
Pieralvise, my personal opinion is that your review is just a concentrate of bad food snobbery attitude! If we follow your way of thinking we should only be allowed to have Italian food in Italy, French food in France, Ssushi in Japan and rice noodles in China! Welcome to the cosmopolitan and multi-cultural society! .... Zampone in May? True, no one will ever eat it in May... as matter of fact I would actually never eat it anyway as I hate it....But... Has anyone forced you to order it? Eat something else..... plenty of dishes on the menu'..... This is the reason why they have a menu... And why could you not have cousine from Campania, Sicily and Tuscany on the same menu? It is not that complicated, is it? I really struggle in understanding your point... it is only a restaurant for God sake! You take this far too seriously... lot of talking but nothing said about the taste of the food: the food tastes great, and this is what matters to me! I don't care where the original dish comes from in Italy, which nationality is the chef etc etc.... I like it and I will go back!...After Mary's rum baba in Naples, they make the best rum baba' I have ever tried ina restaurant, delicious malfatti, gorgeous fritto romano as good as the one from Gioia Mia in Rome, fresh fish, great mozzarella and top class Kimbo Coffee (my only concern here is the coffee machine they use tho)...as I said all this to to me is only a lot of crappy food snobbery! Buon Appetito!
To understand and judge a cuisine it is necessary to have an idea of how the dishes presented are actually prepared and served in their place of origin. At Bocca di Lupo the concept is fine: regional dishes so there is something for everybody but those who have anointed BDL as the best Italian restaurant in London are sadly well off the mark. BDL errs on one essential point: Italian Regional Cuisine is based on seasonality using ingredients found within their territory. Zampone in May? Please!!!!
Food concepts in Sicily are hundreds of light-years different from those in Emilia Romagna and in my many years of negotiating and trying to understand different italian cuisines (and I am italian) I have yetl to find just one Chef that can prepare, to perfection, dishes belonging to two different regions, never mind 20.
I wholly agree with A A Gill's write-up on Table Talk (Style Magazine some months ago) when he states that BDL is a mediocre place where he will not return. I add, more generously, that whoever cooks at BDL really should concentrate on a couple of dishes without trying to be a master of all trades. Finally, prices> How many people can afford to pay a ransom for such pitiful portions and overpriced drinks?
In bocca al lupo (meaning best of luck)
Pieralvise
Francesca Sala: more industrial that artisanal? Maybe the owners should take a trip to italy? On which planet do you live? I am italian and I have not found a better place than bocca di Lupo to eat proper upmarket italian food.... there is very little industrial about their food.... well they do not go to catch the fish with their own boat and they do not roast their own coffe (they use Kimbo tho!!.... top class!) ... I give you that! Most of their food is made in their kitchen, this is for sure.... Oh and having talked to the owners i think they actually lived in Italy for a few years... I think there is something really scary happening here: italian people in london have been contaminarted by too many rubbery lasagne and awful pizzas in places like Amalfi in Old Compton Street...they have lost appreciation for good eating! Let's all go back to Italy for a month for some food-detox! Any takers??
Mike Hall: 5 smalls for 2 people is not enough! mmmm...... Eat more than! There is not limit to the amount of food you can order in a restaurant! I reckon the problem here is actually another...I suggest you read above for suggestions on where you can get your oversized £5.99 tastless lasagne