Polpetto

If I lived in London, I would come to Polpetto basically daily. Definitely get there a bit early and be prepared to hang out and have a beer before you get seated (since the place is small and is super popular), but it’s not bad.
Once you get a table, go to town. Literally order a ton of things and share because they’re all so good. Highlights for me are the Prosciutto/​Rocket flatbread, the soft shell crab, the warm duck salad, and the beef/​pork meatballs. If you want to see other things that are delicious, just read the menu. That is a list of delicious things.
Enjoy! I’m so jealous of you.
Food: ⁵⁄₅
Service: ⁴⁄₅
Value: ⁴⁄₅
Atmosphere: ⁵⁄₅

Polpetto is a small tapas-​restaurant. Has a prticular minimal style, not to many seating so hard to find a table available. The dishes are small so I would suggest to order quite a few. The zucchini are fabulous; a bit expensive the cocktails for the small glasses you get.

Perfect food, very tasty, kind of tapas in Italy. You need to try various dishes. They are all delicious! The service was perfect. Value for money is, compared to other locations in London really good. Come in and enjpy!

We were lucky enough to walk in with only a 15 minute wait for a table. Just enough time for a cocktail starter!
The menu is small plate designed, which are a good size, not tapas, but more generous. The food is really interesting and a challenge for some of us, for example the wet polenta is not a texture most of us are used to for dinner.
The burnt butter bread that seems to be a bit of a signature of the place is pretty interesting, as a croûton in a great salad with white broccoli stems and anchovies.
My favourite was the beef shin strozapretti, really well cooked and fantastic flavour. Wine choice was so excellent and a fantastic accompaniment to the meal.
I’ve wanted to visit this place for a while and having been, I’m glad I have.

Polpetto is one of many London restaurants with obnoxiously long wait times (no reservations) and obnoxiously uncomfortable waiting areas. On a Friday night at 7pm, expect to wait 90 minutes for a table for four.
We enjoyed a couple of decent negronis while waiting and then got to sit in a nice booth for our meal. As there were four of us we ordered nearly everything off the menu. I particularly enjoyed the white sprouting broccoli which had a lot going on (Ada C’s review describes it better than I could, in fact her review is spot on in general!) and the outstanding pork belly — it was really melt in the mouth. The beef shin and jersey potatoes were also worth ordering, as were the fried onions which were really cool and surprised everyone. I thought I wouldn’t like the lamb tongue (I don’t even like lamb that much) but ended up cleaning the plate. The ravioli wasn’t an easy dish to share and to be honest only two night later I can’t really remember it so it can’t have been incredible, but I do seem to remember enjoy it at the time! The burrata I didn’t get that much of but I would prefer a slightly firmer cheese; the foccacia we had with it was absolutely delicious though. I didn’t really like the beetroot purée thing — I’d rather it be more sour — but everyone else did so that’s just personal taste.
We ordered desserts (I would rather have had more pork belly, the most delicious dessert of all) and I didn’t think any of the ones of the menu were that great but the special rhubarb sorbet was absolutely fantastic, potentially my favourite sorbet of all time.
Wine wise we had a really delicious verdicchio de castelli di jesi — not a wine I’ve tried before but I definitely will again!
Overall if I came back here I would rather come with just one other person. Although you’d be able to try less dishes I think you would get to enjoy more of the good ones. Also your wait time will be significantly less!

Polpetto has a great vibe. My friend and I were seated in a little ‘booth’, these little alcoves they had created in the main dining room. So great for an intimate meal! And I love the way their bar stools fold away. Not really necessary but a nice design touch nonetheless.
Ok, so foodwise: everything was tasty. The highlight by far was the white sprouting broccoli with anchovies and shaved Parmesan. The creamy dressing was a perfect foil for the slightly crunchy veg and tart anchovies. I could have easily eaten a large plate of this.
Everything else was good:
Lamb tongue on sliced tomato and elderberry capers. Very tasty and a nice, more adventurous dish to try.
Beef shin ragu with homemade pasta was lovely. Melt in your mouth beef with al dente pasta topped with a pile of Parmesan cheese. Very yummy.
Burrata was very creamy. It was good but I would probably order something else instead next time
Focaccia was perfectly grilled. I’m not a massive bread person and we got it for the burrata. I think it’s unnecessary unless you really I’ve bread or need it to pair with one of the dishes
50cl of Negroarnaro Salento red wine was tasty
Meal came to £64, including service
Definitely will come back again!

What a strange place. Before I say anything else never ever let them seat you downstairs. You’d be in a vestibule in front of the toilets and looking into the kitchen.
The service was pretty good (except for one person telling us we were «wrong» when we all told her that the aircon was intermittently blasting us with cold then hot air).
But the main issue I have with this place is the menu. You simply cannot tell what you are going to end up with. One of our friends ended up with two bowls of what can only be described as babyfood. I did slightly better with the one thing I felt I could happily eat off the menu — but I’ve cooked much better rigatoni myself to be frank.
A serious disappointment. Style over substance. There are many better places within minutes of the restaurant.

Order the menu, except the harshly pickled carrots if they’re schlepping those again.
I have been fortunate enough to have dinner here twice in the past month, both times four of us in the party. So seriously, if there are four of you, the menu of sharing plates and sides is perfect. Assuming you’re awesome and have a healthy appetite. If you’re even more hardcore than me, then you might get the whole dessert menu as well.
Stars of the show:
beetroot purée with lovely toasted focaccia
duck breast and blueberry salad
lamb pappardelle
maple tart
Friendly, though slow, service. Go whilst in a chill mood.

We came to Polpetto with our friends for a weekend lunch since we have heard so many great things about the food. Happy to say they were right!
I really enjoyed the wet polenta, beef shin and the kohlrabi fish dish. Make sure to order at least 2 plates per person as the portion sizes are not big.
Coffee also tastes great, I ordered a cappuccino and the taste was very smooth!

We had been to the old Polpetto on Dean Street, but for some reason hadn’t left a review. We were looking for a place just like that for a nice relaxing dinner on Friday night and found the same still in Soho. It was like visiting an old friend, but there were changes in the layout. Trendier. The dishes were simple and tasty and we had an enjoyable night out. We really enjoy the idea of getting half a dozen small dishes that we can share between us. We selected a nice range of dishes and drank our way through a bottle of prosecco (and a cheeky extra 500ml later on).
Dishes consumed:
Bloater — puréed smoked fish served with generous slices of fresh fennel. A good match and I liked the texture of the bloater. I mopped up the remainder with bread.
Scallops — they were nicely fried and came with cauliflower purée and fried thin pieces of cauliflower. The scallops had lardo on top, just pure fat but melted on the tongue and went with the scallop well.
Chicken oysters. These came with bellotti beans and watercress. It was nice, but not spectacular. Actually I preferred the wet polenta which came out at the same time and was nearly a third of the price. Such a simple dish but we kept coming back for more. I need to learn how to prepare this at home.
Burrata. I have had this before at another restaurant, but here it was creamier and I really enjoyed it. It came with chilli, but I didn’t really notice the hotness.
For dessert, we ordered 3 dishes — the rhubarb with yoghurt and crumble, the green apple sorbet and the maple tart. The first two were delicious and I loved the flavours. Unfortunately for us, the maple tart wasn’t ready and it took too long to set even though we waited extra time for it. The lady at the counter knew our predicament and she gave us regular updates, but it just took longer than they thought. We may just have to try it next time. I’m sure we will be back.
Great service and good conversation. We felt welcomed. They answered our amateur questions about ingredients on the menu (even though they probably get the same questions all the time). We liked spying on the dishes of our fellow diners and speculating what they were.
This is a popular place, so you really need to go early to be confident of getting a seat. Else, you should be prepared to wait for space to free up.

I loved the old Polpetto. Up the flights of stairs above the French House you walked in to an inmate small space with a vibe and some edge. When I was walking to the «new» Polpetto I saw the windows with the lace curtains and thought «Polpo». You walk in and see the bar and the layout and the furniture and you think «Polpo». Where is the uniqueness of Polpetto? That excitement and different vibe that you feel at Spuntino? Not there.
The menu had some hits. Hits were the cavolo nero with anchovies which has a Caesar salad feel to it. Really tasty. Another tasty dish was the creamy burrata with chili. Very good I’d say for the papardelle with boar I think it was and the scallops. Misses were some type of pickled veg (I want to say parsley root0 we had at the beginning.
I just feel like this is been there done that in the Polpo playbook. I expect with a new restaurant opening for Russell Norman to raise his game and not rest on his laurels.