Review at a glance: ★★★☆☆
Lupa: the she-wolf that suckled Rome’s founding twins, Romulus and Remus, nourishing them after their abandonment. A drawing of her prowls across the menu here, presumably to indicate that this is a Roman-style restaurant, rather than to suggest that the founders are big on Mussolini (the dictator once posted Lupa statues to several US cities). “Roman comfort food” is the offer, the owners playing to the strengths of talented head chef Naz Hassan, raised in Italy. Hassan made his name at Pidgin, but cooked too at Bibi and Clipstone; as training wheels go, these are monster truck-sized.
It is the owners who have swivelled the most eyes to this Highbury dining room. One is Ed Templeton, co-founder of Carousel, where Hassan has previously guested. The other is Theo James, the irrepressibly handsome White Lotus star. His inclusion in the photos announcing the place stirred the internet’s interest. Would he be there, seductively sipping a spritz, mulling over an after-party at his place nearby? We can but dream.
A celebrity is not the right reason to visit a restaurant (see: all of Berkeley Square). To its credit, promo material aside, Lupa sensibly doesn’t make anything of James’s involvement. It has no A-list flash, either, though exclusivity is ensured by its size: only 28 diners can be squeezed in at a time. It is a room that appears to have been designed by Pinterest: you have seen the mushroom soup walls and old wine bottles before, the squat water glasses, the wood tables and café curtains. There are several other places it might be mistaken for: it is following the herd. Here’s the wolf in sheep’s clothing gag, then.
If Pinterest did the decor, Pantone seems to have had words in the kitchen. This is a meal of pastel colours, of golden pasta, washed-out red tomatoes, and soft green sauce. Grid-ready pretty.
The menu follows the usual Italian arrangement: antipasti, pasta, secondi, sides. Befitting its billing as somewhere for comfort, dishes are straightforward and easily recognised. Cured meats and cacio e pepe? Tiramisu? Only the wilfully contrary would struggle to eat something. On the other hand, only the very sheltered could get a kick out of it. With Carousel’s rotating residencies, and James’s extensive travels, you’d think they’d have done something more interesting than spaghetti in tomato sauce.
Sorry, bucatini, which is completely different to spaghetti as it’s about a millimetre thicker and has a hole in the middle. No comparison. Familiar is fine if the execution is excellent… but perhaps you see where this is going. That all’amatriciana was severely underpowered; you have eaten similar from supermarket jars. Tomatoes from Sorrento sliced thinly into what was called a carpaccio came covered with a hefty amount of lemon zest, some good-tasting oil and the crunch of pangrattato (bread crumbs). But the tomatoes were mush with no discernable taste, and what offered flavour — capers — were in short supply: the plate held exactly seven. There should have been great handfuls tossed on. Flawed but likeable. Nice to find a kindred spirit in a dish.
Only the very sheltered could get a kick out of this menu
Better was the courgette flower stuffed with burrata and crisply deep-fried. It tasted of long afternoons abroad, even if its advertised anchovy was missing. “Carbonara” seemed a bit of a stretch; not the dish that might be anticipated, but perhaps the most interesting thing offered. Paccheri came like a pile of pillowcases, an egg yolk sauce the colour of bullion and studded with hefty curls of salty guanciale. Three types of pepper made the dish, said Hassan.Perhaps one would have done; the trio overpowered. Throughout, both restraint and abandon were exercised in all the wrong places.
Not all bad: lamb chops cooked to a pinkish perfection; excellent rosemary-scattered roast potatoes. And Lupa pulls off a trick of feeling very relaxed — no one shooing you on — while actually being rather speedy. The only trouble is, I left not sure if it was good, bad or just indifferent. Hassan will get it right with time, I think. But thank God Rome already exists. Romulus and Remus wouldn’t have got very far if they’d been relying on this place instead.
73 Highbury Park, N5 1UA. Meal for two about £130; lupa.restaurant
