Review: Bocca di Lupo, Soho

The latest in my blog series: “But is it still any good?” where I gradually get around to eating out at all the places that were shiny and new in London while I was living out in the provinces!

Bocca di Lupo was pretty exciting when it opened; a trendy dining room down a sleazy Soho backstreet offering regional Italian specialties that you might otherwise need to search down a sleazy Naples backstreet to find. No canneloni, arrabiata, osso bucco or lasagna here. This also isn’t the Cali-Italy cuisine of Alice Waters. It’s not bright and fresh and crisp. It’s earthy, elevated peasant food of warmth and generosity.

I loved seeing the regions named on the menu; that little flourish alone helped remove me to Italian holidays and sunnier climates. Handy with October in full swing outside.

We start with two deep-fried chunks of bacalao. The batter is crisp, not oily, and the salty chunks of fish inside are velvety soft and full of flavour. Next there’s a platter of pig’s head terrine with “medieval spicing”. This is wonderful, with a very merry Christmas hum of cloves and orange zest cutting through the soft piggish terrine. The little puff of fried bread and the pickles with it. All yum. We enjoy a simple lamb chop, well grilled. Girolles with lemon and parsley is exactly what it says (though I’ve perhaps had better girolles elsewhere; this dish kinda lives and dies by the quality of the ‘shrooms).

Rigatoni con la pigata sounds like a proper Roman oddity; milk-fed calves intestines in a tomato and pecorino sauce. The rigatoni are big sturdy tubes and the sauce is offaly good. We do pick one trad number: aubergine parmigiana. It’s better than I’ve ever had it, absolutely perfect texture, nice hum of bay running through, not over-oily, just absolutely deluxe.

We stick to gelato for pud. My ricotta and wild cherry is excellent, very clean white ice cream and plenty of gooey cherry pieces just a tad bitter. Maureen’s profiterole is filled with pistachio ice cream and chocolate sauce. It’s good, but sadly not as epic as it looks.

The best part, we walk out comfortably stuffed and with a couple of glasses of wine inside us but the bill is still properly under £100 with service. This is just excellent value. Bocca di Lupo becomes an instant favourite of mine, and a target whenever I’m up in the West End and in need of Italian food.