New Soho favourite

Friends and media have been raving on about Bocca di Lupo so much recently, to the extent that I was chatting to a complete stranger about it in a coffee shop the other day (I know, these sorts of things are not supposed to happen in London) but I still haven't managed to go. To be honest, I'm not sure about the concept of Italian tapas. I am a greedy person, and I want big plates of food all to myself!

A friend of Meghana's mentioned though that there was a good new place called Polpo on Beak Street, very good and cosy, the sort of place where the proprietor is in a jumper and jeans and will sit you personally himself. I keep walking past this place recently, and to be honest, it looks very non-descript and unexciting on the outside. But I realised they must be doing something right when I walked in on a Monday evening and it was absolutely packed.

And for once, I quite like the non booking system here, it feels like it fits this sort of place, and turnover is quick enough that we waited for only a few minutes. The place inside is tiny, tables so packed together there is barely an inch between them, but again, I thought it just added to the charm of the place.

Like Bocca di Lupo, it is Italian tapas, and if you read the website, apparently it is based on a Venetian style of eating. I'd actually already eaten staff dinner only a few hours before, so it was actually good to have 'picky' food. And everything was pretty unfamiliar. We had a sausage made of pig's trotters, the name of which escapes me, which was quite reminiscent of spam, but served with pickled cabbage and mustard worked really well. Next to it was some not very exciting but well executed spinach with garlic and chilli:

The dish that worked really well was the cuttlefish in its own ink with gremolata, definitely the dish that jumps out at you from the menu, and very very good. Next to it was again an unexciting but well done pumpkin risotto:

I am finding it hard to convey how lovely this place is though. Lots of little touches that make you really warm to it, for example, wines served in individual carafes that are different on every table (and at £9 or £10 for 500mls, quite a bargain). I was also a little disturbed that they seemed to have stolen my ipod for their music here, everything they played I loved, including PJ Harvey, early Bjork, The Doves, Portishead, glad to see someone else is still living in 1990's Britpop era. I imagine I will come here lots and fall in love with the proprietor very soon.