Polpo
Author: Mārtiņš Rītiņš0 COMMENTS
Venetian bacaro style restaurant in London's Soho district keeps drawing a steady flow of visitors. Folks swarms at Polpo's entrance like ants, and its 50 seats are always occupied, while at the bar, bottles of wine are uncorked and cocktails are mixed all the time.
When observing a community of ants, it's impossible to tell what role each of them has, and it's much the same at Polpo as well, making it difficult to discriminate between a guest and a staff member. Although it favors a casual style allowing waiters to wear whatever they like, there is a common feature for all of them. It's an amazing friendliness and exceptional communication skills involuntarily leading to ponder whether there are some sophisticated flirting classes which all of them could have finished with excellence.
Speaking of guests, it doesn't matter who is who either. The point why everyone is there is the same - to taste an incredibly delicious Venetian cuisine! Moreover, Polpo occupies the former studio of Venetian artist Canaletto and has managed to maintain its relaxed, easy-going atmosphere.
Its stretched dining room features plain brick walls and a rather rough finish around the edges. Tables are set in rows much like school desks, while the food serving manner encourages sharing and sampling as many dishes as possible. In fact, it's impossible to avoid that. A menu - an old clipboard style pad with brownish wrapping paper pages lure with original, mouth-watering tapas, making it impossible to select just something one.
Lamb kidneys, chicken liver, croquettes with various fillings, salted cod on grilled polenta, duck with pepper and olives, pork belly, mackerel tartar with hazelnuts, fresh vegetables and much more. In addition to that - no long waiting for your food to arrive! Fast service and purity of food are utmost priorities of Polpo, and prices are pleasantly friendly as well.
http://polpo.co.uk
41 Beak Street
London W1F 9SB.
020 7734 4479
12/2010