Founder of Bocca di Lupo, Jacob Kenedy, is pleased to announce that the much-loved Soho restaurant will be reopening its doors on Wednesday 2 September.
Founded in 2008, the award-winning restaurant is famous for its stripped-back, honest dishes where the ingredients shine and the menu celebrates food from all twenty regions of Italy.
For the reopening, Bocca di Lupo will take customers on month-long voyages to regions across Italy with these dishes offered alongside the a la carte.
From the aristocratic foothills of the Alpine north, to the sun-kissed sands and abundant oceans in the south. Dishes will showcase the local ingredients and cookery styles accompanied by a carefully chosen selection of wines, offered by the glass.
To begin, September takes us to the southern island of Sicily, with its rich volcanic soils, placid beaches and ancient ruins from a millennia of continuous conquest. Here they grow forth from the earth an incredible bounty reflected in the menu.
Starting with fresh bites such as squid, prawns and lemon slices with pesto alla trapenese and sheep’s milk ricotta, pistachio and basil which will emerge from the kitchen throughout the month.
For mains, classic Sicilian dishes such as gnocchi alla norma will be on offer as well as swordfish palerminata, a comforting dish from Palermo with the fish covered in a light crumb of capers and ricotta.
As October evenings start to draw in, the menu will travel northwards to Lazio and Rome its capital. Comforting pasta dishes such as spaghetti alle vongole packed with fresh clams and paccheri con scorfano (red scorpionfish) ragù.
Diners can receive warming fagioli con le cotiche (braised borlotti beans with pork rind) and tender suckling pig with grapes and chestnuts. For dessert, there’s burnt ricotta pie and the vulgarly named le palle del nonno, translated as grandpa’s balls; crispy deep-fried, sweetened ricotta dusted with sugar.
As we move to the end of an English autumn in November we turn to southern Puglia to for their still warm rays of sunlight, known for its cucina povera: incredible seafood, wild greens and simple pasta dishes.
Then, come December, we head back up north to the prosperous region of Piedmont known for their bold red wines of Barolo and Barbaresco grown in the gentle hills, amongst winding dirt roads and rustic villages.
For those in search of a dusting of decadence, Bocca di Lupo will once again allow guests to BYO truffle to be generously shaved tableside onto bowls of agnolotti dal plin stuffed with veal & pork or roast partridge with creamy polenta and bagna cauda.
For the time-poor, Bocca di Lupo will also offer a Worker’s Lunch of two courses for £12, this month offering panelle (crispy chickpea fritters) to start, followed by rigatoni alla norma (with the option to add a glass of wine, dessert of a cannolo stuffed with ricotta & pistachio and espresso for £10).
For those still happiest cooking at home, the restaurant also offers their London-wide delivery service, Bocca di Lupo at Home. The feasting boxes, designed for two, offer recipients the chance to cook a range of the signature regional Italian dishes in their own kitchens with detailed instructions from Jacob and the team.
Echoing the restaurant, each At Home menu will take their cues from the region of focus, designed to be shared between two and divided into three categories of Campo (Field), Maccellaio (Meat) and Mare (Sea).
Chef Patron Jacob said, ‘I’m thrilled to be able to welcome old and new guests back to Bocca di Lupo. We were able to bring a taste of Italy direct to people’s homes through our delivery service and meal kits for the past few months which was great and we don’t plan to stop that, but nothing beats cooking for guests at our Soho home.
'We have a few new dishes on the menu as we spotlight different regions of Italy and showcase some of their amazing flavours but as always, we’ll be keeping our classics there too! I can’t wait for diners to be able to try them with a glass or two of wine, it’ll be a little holiday for the palate.'