When you’re still salivating over a dish three days after you ate it, then you know it’s been a great dining experience. Luca was always likely to be a success given it is the second venture from Isaac McHale of Clove Club fame. The story here is about classy contemporary food, paying clear homage to Italy but using primarily British ingredients.
Luca is a wonderful dining space. There are intimate booths in the first part of the restaurant, with the bar opposite. At the end of this room, Luca opens out into a much wider room, with the open kitchen to one side and a brick-backed conservatory at the rear. Tables are well-spaced to afford conversation where one doesn’t have to shout (unlike, say, at Bocca di Lupo) to make oneself heard. Although we arrived for an early dinner at Luca, by 7pm the atmosphere was buzzing and almost every table taken. Reservations are recommended.
The menu is brief, with just four antipasti, primi and secondi options in each section. Alternatively, have the trouble taken out of your hands and let the chef decide. Four unlisted (and presumably semi-unscripted) dishes will arrive at your table. Given the range of conversational topics your reviewer and his dining comrade had to discuss, we were delighted with this option and the avoidance of potential deliberation. The only suggestion our server made was that we should order a portion of parmesan fries to accompany the chef’s menu. This was the best piece of advice possible – and the dish over which I’m still dreaming. Said fries are deliciously decadent and probably terribly unhealthy, but you just want more of them. Think of them as akin to savoury churros. What’s not to like?!
However impressive the parmesan fries were, this is not to take away from the rest of Luca’s offerings. Each scored highly in terms of both composition and presentation. Something as simple as a burrata was elevated by grilled vegetables, while the pesto and chilli sauce added both colour and flavour to our pasta option. The pork main (pictured) was outstanding and if there were a let-down, then it would be the slightly unoriginal choice of tiramisu as dessert. We loved our wine (a Quercibella) chosen from an extensive, Italian-focused list. The experience does not come cheaply – although little of this quality does anywhere in London – and £85 a head for four dishes is mostly money well spent. Don’t forget to add (for a mere £7.50 extra) those parmesan fries.