Though Bocca di Lupo, one of London’s finest Italian restaurants, has long served trippa alla romana as a special, it is now to launch the tripe sandwich on a permanent basis.
In Rome, the sandwich comes out of Testaccio, the butcher’s district. It’s a working-class dish — cheap but delicious. To cook a good one requires a knowledge of food rather than the frivolous application of lofty ingredients.
Bocca’s chef-proprietor, Jacob Kenedy, lived in Rome for a year before he opened the restaurant and says the dish is his strongest memory of the city. Since he first served it in 2008, it has been an off-menu customer favourite, served only occasionally.
Roman tripe sandwiches call for the second stomach of the cow, which is probably the most famous of the four given it resembles honeycomb and is often found at restaurants such as St John. It’s particularly well regarded because sauces cling to it (Italians love it when sauces cling to things; see also: pasta shapes). As in Rome, at Bocca the tripe is traditionally prepared with a savoury tomato sauce, one made with a soffritto (carrots, celery, onions), a splash of white wine and guanciale.
Honeycomb tripe is a really tender and rich offal. In its traditional Roman sandwich preparation, it comes blanketed by pecorino, a glug of good olive oil and fresh mint to freshen things up. It’s a fine example of the best of Roman eating: a “fifth quarter” — quinto quarto, offcuts made majestic — meal of fettle and muster.
“You either like tripe or you don't. This dish is manna to the tripophile and a good introduction to the uninitiated,” Kenedy previously said of the dish.
The sandwich is now being served at Bocca’s counter every Monday to Friday from 10pm, limited to 12 available each day, and is made with focaccia. No word yet on price.
12 Archer Street, W1D 7BB, boccadilupo.com
