I like to think I’m not unduly influenced by food critics and their reviews, especially seeing as my views don’t always overlap, but I can’t get away from the fact that a number of positive reviews this year enticed me through the door.

Bocca Di Lupo joins the still growing band of  restaurants that offer their dishes in either large or small portions, giving the opportunity to have a ‘tapas’ style meal rather than the more traditional three courses. I wish somebody would invent a new word for these type of restaurants, considering ‘tapas’ clearly is not a good fit for any establishment not serving Spanish food, but I digress.

Italian cuisine is the name of the game at Bocca Di Lupo and it’s marketing in quite a canny way. Rather than just having a menu with dishes from a number of different regions and lumping them all together (as in most Italian restaurants), Bocca Di Lupo names the region each dish hails from, giving an additional feel of provenance to the dish. It’s a nice touch and I have to say I’d be a lot more cynical about this clever marketing if the food wasn’t as good as it was.

The layout gives the option of sitting at the counter watching the chefs compile the dishes or at a table, away from the action. Booking a week in advance still only left the option of sitting at the counter, but this wasn’t something Miss P and I were too bothered about, being quite interested in seeing the chefs at work. What we weren’t quite expecting was that the chef working in front of us on the salads, to keep stuffing so much of the food down his gullet, but I guess if I was in the same position I’d probably be doing exactly the same under the guise of ‘tasting’ the food before it went out.

After a discussion with our knowledgeable waiter, we ordered seven dishes of the smaller variety, comprising of three side/vegetable options and four with meat/fish, which were to arrive in no particular order. First up were the Sand Eel & Squid, with the Crescentini with Finocchiona (fennel salami) & Speck. The first former was perfectly cooked seafood (as were the Skate Cheeks later on), if a tad uninspirational, but having said that, most seafood is best when it’s not been played around with too much.  The Crescentini etc was quite disappointing for me, though, basically being a savoury doughnut with cured meat that wasn’t particularly creative or, I felt, that difficult to put together.

The arrival of the Radish & Celeriac Salad with Truffle Oil dispelled any questions I’d raised into the accuracy of previous reviews, as this dish was divine. The combination of both red & black radish with wafer thin celeriac was somehow transformed into something greater than the sum of it’s parts. I tried to recreate this dish a few days later but got nowhere near replicating the amazing taste the chefs had managed to create. Hats off to them for that one.

The following dishes were a bit of a mix. Cannellini Beans all’ucceletto (in a tomatoey sauce) was a good, solid, rustic dish and the Fried Artichoke a pleasant mouthful, but the Foie Gras & Pork Sausage did not live up to expectations. I couldn’t really taste the foie gras at all and the sausage overall was OK, but nothing special.

Another in depth discussion with our waiter led to the order of a couple of dessert wines to finish off with. The Picolit went to Miss P, with the Passito di Pantilleria Ben Rye to me, both of which were well recommended.

Whilst I don’t think that Bocca Du Lupo quite deserves the lavish praise heaped upon it, it certainly deserves a reasonable amount of credit. The service was excellent and the waiter was very happy to engage with us regarding our choices as well as being very knowledgeable not only about the food menu, but also the dessert wines, too. Some of the dishes were not fantastic taste wise, although this maybe more a reflection of my preference for stronger tastes, but all the dishes were well cooked. On the cost side of things, the dishes we ordered started at a fiver and went up to a tenner, although most were around the £7-8 mark, which I think were pretty much spot on, value wise. Overall, this is somewhere I would be happy to recommend and would welcome a visit back.