Friday 18 April 2014

Restaurant Review: Polpo, Smithfields

Spinach, Parmesan & soft egg pizzette
On Monday night school friends Rob, Joel and I had one of our six monthly catch ups over dinner. After Joel's successful choice of Vanilla Black last time out I put my neck on the line and suggested Polpo next to Smithfield Market. I was addicted to The Restaurant Man earlier in the year and had been looking for the opportunity to try one of Russell Norman's restaurants. Dinner with the boys seemed like the ideal chance.

Joel and I arrived early so we had a chance to order a beer and catch up. Seeing the food head to nearby tables was piquing my appetite and we decided to order a couple of the small plates to keep us going. Rob arrived just as the food hit the table which made us look like we'd time things perfectly, rather than being caught in the act of eating.

Potato & Parmesan crocchette
We stuck almost exclusively to vegetarian / fish dishes and with all the plates being under £10 I thought it was pretty good value. My highlights were the spinach, parmesan & soft egg pizzette (£8). The egg was indeed soft, but thankfully hadn't made the pizzette soggy (cooked separately?).

The chick pea, spinach & ricotta meatballs (£6) were surprisingly tasty and I didn't regret ordering the vegetarian option at all. I suspect it was the ricotta which made them taste so good. The prawn & artichoke linguine, bottarga (£8) was a generous serving for the price with sweet prawns.

Salmon tartare, horseraddish & carta di musica
If I wanted to pick the salmon tartare, horseraddish & carta di musica (£7) had a little too much horseraddish which hit you in pockets and dominated the salmon. And I thought thought the savoury dishes were better than the sweet.

Overall it was definitely a good evening. Just a shame I forgot my tape measure so I couldn't measure the height of the bar........

Chick pea, spinach & ricotta
Castelfranco, red onion & pine nuts
Prawn & artichoke linguine, bottarga
Duck, blood orange & fennel salad
Dessert special

All my eats are added to my map.

Polpo Smithfield
3 Cowcross Street
London EC1M 6DR
Polpo on Urbanspoon

1 comment:

  1. Nothing worse than being caught in the act of sneaky eating :-)
    Croquettes are still something I always mean to try and make and never quite get there...maybe tomorrow.

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