Tapas-Style Italian Sharing Plates in London ft. Polpo
AD 🍝 Polpo 🍝
Come and try the true taste of Venice in London.
If you’re looking for tapas-style Italian sharing plates, Polpo is the place to go. They offer small plates of seafood, pizzas, pastas and meaty snacks at the heart of Soho and Chelsea.
✨Here’s my review✨
1️⃣ CICCHETTI
🎃 Pumpkin, sage & Parmesan crochette
💰 £6.00
🌟 7/10
These croquettes are stuffed with pumpkin, sage and Parmesan cheese. Once you bite through the crunchy outer skin, you can taste the smashed fillings which is nicely seasoned and extremely soft. It’s delicious!
🍄 Truffle cacio e pepe arancini
💰 £8.00
🌟 8/10
Classic Italian homemade rice ball, deep fried
with truffle. Managed to do a successful cheese pull out of this. It’s served warm.
2️⃣ MEAT
🍝 Pappardelle with beef shin ragu
💰 £14.50
🌟 8/10
Pappardelle is a broad flat ribbon pasta and this is served with a slow cooked meat-based sauce. It’s likely warm only when it’s served and given that we sat outdoors and took a bit of time for filming, it became cold pretty quickly.
The whole pasta tastes good but I’ve tried a better version elsewhere. Their meat is slightly dry on some part and I wish appropriate portion of grayed Parmesan cheese is provided. The pasta is tender on the inside but firm to bite from the outside.
3️⃣ FISH
🦑 Calamari fritti
💰 £14.00
🌟 8/10
Fried calamari served In their chef’s special house sauce. Squish the lemon to drop their juices on the freshly fried squids to enhance the flavour. Squid 🦑 is crispy and well-marinated. It’s dangerously addictive. It’s quite pricey given the portion provided is not humongous.
4️⃣ PIZETTE
🍕 Soft egg, spinach & Parmesan
💰 £10.00
🌟 7/10
A very different kind of pizza compared to the normal one I usually have but it did blew me away. Pizza is filled with cooked spinach, Parmesan with egg yolk placed in the middle of the pizza.
After you break the egg with your knife, make sure to spread it out smoothly in a circle. Their crust is so flavourful which pair perfectly with the buttery base. It’s a must to tear the crust out and dip it with the running yolk.
I would highly recommend you to try this. It’s natural, crusty and so delicious! It’s time to try something different with a refreshing twist from the traditional Italian Pizza 🍕!
5️⃣ VEGETABLES
🧀 Burrata, lentils & herby dressing
💰 £12.00
🌟 7/10
One of the best Burrata I’ve ever tried across London – it’s really creamy, smooth and milky. Its another healthy combination to pair it with lentils rather than ham.
Definitely recommend them to add some fresh tomatoes to provide the refreshing flavours.
🥒 Zucchini fries
💰 £8.00
🌟 8/10
Ngl this tasted better than the normal potato fries served in the fast food chain. Their batter did the magic wonder – it’s perfectly coated with the right amount of batter before fried to perfection. It tasted really good – just like normal fries and one of fav dish of the day. I wouldn’t need to worry about calories by having this compared to normal fries!
6️⃣ Desserts
🍰 Tiramisu cake
💰 £9.00
🌟 7.5/10
Hmm it’s probably one of the best coffee-layered cake with strong coffee taste. It’s better than all the tiramisu that I’ve tried in Italian restaurants that I visited before! The cake itself is spongy and fluffy.
🍫 Poached pear, ricotta & hazelnut praline
💰 £8.00
🌟 7.5/10
I’m so impressed by how they used the actual pear to be poached and then decorated with ricotta and hazelnut praline.
You are having a dessert 🍮 with pear 🍐 rather than any artificial ingredients and it tasted so good without feeling too sweet. It’s spectacular and innovative.
Conclusion
🤩Rating: 8/10
💷 Price: ££
🎯Worth revisit: YAS 👏 high quality tapas-style Italian cuisines with excellent taste! Check it out! 🙂
📍Polpo | Soho | Chelsea
⏰ Opening hours: Sun – Wed 1200 – 2200; Thurs – Sat 1100 – 2300
🚂 Train station: Sloane Square station
Equipment: I took all the photos above using Sony Alpha 7 II | Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera.
Don’t forget to check out my other posts regarding the London restaurant reviews, if you are interested to dine in, in places like Galaxy, Sushi Samba, The Ivy Market Grill and Feya Cafe.