LISTINGS RESTAURANTS Restaurants: Italian stallion The restaurant choice in Soho can overwhelm. Alex Dalzell discovers the pick of the pile at Bocca di Lupo The labyrinth of Soho’s back streets often disorients my deliriously hungry mind into grabbing the nearest menu offering a fi xed price feed. But this time I had a plan: with street map in hand, I hot-footed to Archer Street’s new Bocca di Lupo Italian restaurant, London’s latest foody phenomenon. My dining companion and I were shown to our stools at the ‘Chef’s Counter’ — a long, polished white-marble bar overlooking the open kitchen, where four chefs cooked endless dishes for the full-to-capacity restaurant. We scanned the daily-changing menu We started with the spinach & ricotta Malfetti, then the melt-in-the-mouth Sicilian swordfi sh, followed by the utterly fl avoursome Tuscan rib of beef with parmesan, rocket and rosemary — a chunk of meat that was so popular there were at least two being fl ipped on the griddle at any one time. Chef Jacob Kenedy uses a clever small/large menu of impressive dishes, making
a much more social pick-and-mix eating experience. It may be early days for this
new kid on the block, but it seems it’s here to stay — top restaurateurs will be
quaking in their catering clogs. T: 020 7734 2223. www.boccadilupo.com RESTAURANTS AVISTA Grosvenor Square, W1K 2HP. T: 020 7596 3399. www.avistarestaurant.com
Mayfair-located Italian restaurant. ALAIN DUCASSE AT THE
DORCHESTER Hyde Park Corner T: 020 7629 8866. BALANS 60 Old Compton Street, W1D 4UG. Piccadilly Circus T: 020 7439 2183. BARRAFINA 54 Frith Street, W1D 4SL. Tottenham Court Road/Leicester Square T: 020 7813 8016. www.barrafi na.co.uk BELGO CENTRAL 50 Earlham Street, WC2H 9LJ. Covent Garden T: 020 7813 2233. BELOW ZERO 31-33 Heddon Street, W1B 4BN. T: 020 7478 8910. BENARES 12 Berkeley Square House, W1J 6BS. Green Park T: 020 7629 8886. BLACK & BLUE 90-92 Wigmore Street, W1U 3RD. T: 020 7486 1912. BODEAN’S 10 Poland Street, W1F 8PZ. Oxford Circus IMAGE: BOCCA W2L SUMMER 2009 71 |