Polpetto

Polpetto - 11 Berwick Street, London W1F 0PL

Polpetto will open at the following times during the festive period: Polpetto opened in 2010 and originally occupied the first floor of the French House pub on Dean Street.

But the venue proved too small and the restaurant’s 24 seats were always oversubscribed.

After a year of searching for the right location, Russell Norman and Richard Beatty have relocated the restaurant to Berwick Street.

The venue boasts 60 seats, an aperitivo bar, an open kitchen and a chef’s table.

“The whole place has that extraordinary feel of familiarity and comfort that takes such craft to create from the restaurant I’d choose to go to above all others in London: my idea of fun” “With this Soho comeback Polpetto’s acquired a bolder, more mature feel – and we think it’s better than ever” “The ingredients work together to create something rather greater than a mere sum of their parts” “It’s the world’s best Caesar salad, and I would like to take it home to live with me” “The return of this much-loved restaurant is welcome news…it seems like Polpetto's been here forever”

http://polpetto.co.uk

Polpetto, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

Sat in Polpetto, I spotted a poker-school mate and professional gambler of such fearsome shrewdness that for years no central London turf accountant has been prepared to take his money.

“My God, this is amazingly good,” said my friend of our first choice, pizzetta bianca, thin, piping hot micro-pizza topped with red onion and rosemary.

Soft shell crab, a steal at £9 for such a generous serving, had been fried in Parmesan batter to an absurdly crisp and light finish, and was paired with a zinging fennel salad that beautifully drew out the subtle taste of the crabmeat.

Zucchini fries were as thin as Belgian frites, and as light and greaseless as the crab, while sprouting broccoli was matched, quite brilliantly, with smoked almonds and chilli.

I answered with the same appreciative nod I gave him at Newmarket last year as we queued in adjacent lines to collect on a 12-1 colt which, like Polpetto, had used a mixture of youthful exuberance and sheer class to make a very difficult task look childishly simple.

New Restaurant Review: Polpetto | Londonist

In its new guise, it can take double the number of diners, and it becomes the latest in a string of openings from Russell Norman, currently the king of restaurant cool in the capital.

Norman launched the original Polpo on Beak Street back in 2009 to enormous success, and managed along the way to start a trend for small plates, no reservations, and these now-ubiquitous filament light bulbs.

And with two more Polpos now pulling in the punters in Covent Garden and Smithfield, another successful pair of West End small plate joints in Spuntino and Mishkins, and a busy pub in the form of The Ape & Bird, there’s no denying that the man done good.

The menu features a few more than 10 small plates averaging around £6-£10, some sides at £3.50-£4, and a handful of desserts at £5-£7.

Much like the small plates here, just be aware that the bill could easily fill up more than you do.

Alle Testiere @ Polpetto Tickets, London | Eventbrite

For longer than we can remember we've wanted to bring one of our favourite restaurants in Venice, Alle Testiere, to collaborate with us in London.

On 12th and 13th June, we will welcome Alle Testiere owners Luca and Bruno to Soho, as they spend a two night residency recreating their Venetian osteria at Polpetto.

The most renowned osteria in Venice, Alle Testiere is a 24-cover neighbourhood restaurant, serving fish sourced from Venice’s lagoon waters and herbs foraged from the surrounding islands.

The menu at Polpetto, in keeping with the philosophy of Alle Testiere, will be crafted around fresh produce available on the day and may be subject to change...only for the better, of course!

There's a separate wine list and we’re delighted to have sourced some of the best home-grown wines from the vineyards that sit on the island of Sant’Erasmo, in the Venetian Lagoon.

POLPO - Venetian sharing plates

March is a month long celebration of women.

POLPO women, hospitality women, women from all walks of life.

Polpetto - restaurant review | London Evening Standard

After some years of managing restaurants for other people, notably Richard Caring’s Caprice Holdings, he created his own place, Polpo, with his friend Richard Beatty, in 2009.

This Venetian-style bacaro, offering small plates of utter deliciousness, was an instant hit — and he quickly opened several other branches, including Polpetto, above the French House pub in Dean Street, with Florence Knight, a looker in her mid-twenties who happens to be a really thoughtful chef, cooking.

Polpetto closed in May 2012, the plan being to re-open in larger premises at the end of that year, but it has been a long haul to find the right location and knock it into shape, Russell being a perfectionist who designs and oversees his places himself.

The last time we did this, to go to the “soft opening” (ie half-price food) of Russell’s gastropub The Ape Bird on Shaftesbury Avenue in November, we ended up a bit disappointed.

The salt cod, after being repeatedly soaked, is beaten up with oil, garlic and milk, infused with bay and onion, to produce a wonderfully elastic white paste, and served with grilled bread and lemon to squeeze over — it’s sublime, the very perfection of that taste.

Polpetto, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

Sat in Polpetto, I spotted a poker-school mate and professional gambler of such fearsome shrewdness that for years no central London turf accountant has been prepared to take his money.

“My God, this is amazingly good,” said my friend of our first choice, pizzetta bianca, thin, piping hot micro-pizza topped with red onion and rosemary.

Soft shell crab, a steal at £9 for such a generous serving, had been fried in Parmesan batter to an absurdly crisp and light finish, and was paired with a zinging fennel salad that beautifully drew out the subtle taste of the crabmeat.

Zucchini fries were as thin as Belgian frites, and as light and greaseless as the crab, while sprouting broccoli was matched, quite brilliantly, with smoked almonds and chilli.

I answered with the same appreciative nod I gave him at Newmarket last year as we queued in adjacent lines to collect on a 12-1 colt which, like Polpetto, had used a mixture of youthful exuberance and sheer class to make a very difficult task look childishly simple.

Restaurant: Polpetto, London W1 | John Lanchester | Food and drink ...

This week's restaurant, Polpetto, is the third newly-launched trendy London small-plate Italian I've written about in three months.

The venue is the upstairs room at the French House, a historically important pub, once HQ of the Free French in London and subsequently a boho hang-out of a, to be honest, slightly plonkerish and self-conscious type.

It's a good fit with the small room and the noisy pub below, and the twisty staircase populated by Soho wallies on their way to the loo and/or making mobile phone calls.

The concept behind Polpetto might seem the work of some soulful Italian possessed by an exile's nostalgia for his beloved Veneto, but in fact it's the work of a hard-headed restaurant pro, Russell Norman.

If I had a friend with a consuming interest in Italian food, I wouldn't necessarily take her to Polpetto; but if she were about to go into the restaurant business and wanted to see how to catch a trend and do it just right, it would be top of my list.

Polpetto | Restaurants in Soho, London

After he and business partner Richard Beatty opened Polpo on Beak Street in 2009, there was a ripple of me-too establishments and there’s no shortage of pared-down New York-style diners in the ilk of their Rupert Street establishment Spuntino either.

And true to form, the latest incarnation of Polpetto (previously on a different site, a dining room above the French House on Dean Street) looks set to be a winner.

The long, low-lit dining room bubbles with attentive staff serving Italian-inspired small plates to the appreciative crowd who don’t seem to mind being seated on tightly packed tables.

In the basement dining room, there’s the bonus of a view of chef Florence Knight and her skilled team in a glass-fronted kitchen.

Cocktails too were cleverly mixed with Italian liqueurs such as Cynar adding complex bitter notes to the likes of a gin fizz.