When I visited: November 2018

Location: London, Soho

Rating in the Michelin Guide: Recommended

Dining Owl Hoot rating: 3/5

What to wear: Men – jeans or nice trousers and a shirt; women – jeans and a smart top or a smart dress / workwear

Ambience: Smart / casual, businesslike

Course of the meal: Sea bass carpaccio

If I could change one thing: More flavour in the risotto

Review:

Bocca Di Lupo is a popular, well-placed Italian restaurant very near to several of the West End theatres in the Piccadilly Circus / Soho area. I went for a pre-theatre meal so was slightly limited for time, and shared all the dishes.

We had a glass of white Soave each (nice if not remarkable) and shared focaccia and brown bread (good and salty), sea bass carpaccio (delicious and light) and the truffle, artichoke and arugula salad (light, but lacking in significant truffle flavour). The weightier dishes were octopus with tomatoes and chickpeas (well-balanced), tagliatelle with venison ragout (OK but a little heavy), and mushroom risotto (which didn’t have enough flavour and was a little big even for two people to share). We also sampled the Bonet dessert (a well-received chocolate, cherry and coffee concoction) and I wanted to try the Bombe Calda (which sounded like an indulgent hot chocolate fried doughnut) but couldn’t as this would have taken 15 minutes or so and we needed to get to the theatre.

I think Bocca Di Lupo is a good choice if you like simple, traditional Italian dishes, but I didn’t sample anything remarkable on my first visit.