Lupa restaurant review: a terrific trattoria from a White Lotus star

Times

3 days ago

It was 1am when the chef Naz Hassan stumbled home from the Christmas party at Carousel in Fitzrovia, central London, where he was working temporarily. He woke his girlfriend and told her he was going to open a new restaurant with an actor. He recalls her groggy reply: 'Go to sleep. You're drunk, you're dreaming. Forget about it.'
Now he has done exactly that, launching a neighbourhood Roman osteria with Theo James, the handsome 40-year-old Brit you'll have seen in The Gentlemen, The White Lotus, The Time Traveler's Wife or the Divergent trilogy.
It's a sweltering day when I first visit Lupa, a few days before the opening. All the doors and windows are open and people wander past, gawping at James, who's hiding under a baseball cap. But others are leaning their heads too: a local gossiping about the fact this place used to be a shoe shop; a teenage girl in search of a waitressing job; a mourner from a funeral across the road, seeking a last-minute loan of a Bluetooth speaker.
All this makes Lupa feel like a proper local restaurant — a far cry from the silver screen. Yet it's a well-trodden path from film to hospitality. James's director in The Gentlemen, Guy Ritchie, has a pub. But James has long yearned for his own place. 'I've always loved food, always loved restaurants,' he says.
His chance came when his wife, Ruth, met a woman at a local baby group who happened to be married to Ed Templeton — an experienced restaurateur who runs Carousel. With their shared love of food (and of Rome) it wasn't long before the two men also became friends.
They were having a drink in Templeton's garden when James mentioned that he'd always fancied opening an Italian. And now they have. Hassan was recruited at that Christmas party. 'Naz knows the history of every ingredient and the pathway to it,' James says proudly.
When I return to eat a week or so later, the restaurant is packed. The famous face behind it clearly hasn't hurt publicity-wise. Lupa is small and simple: white walls, wooden tables. The only decorations on the walls are wine bottles and a couple of understated bits of modern art from the Jameses' living room.
The food is pretty authentic but they've made the recipes a bit lighter to appease fragile London palates. Fried courgette flower stuffed with burrata is remarkably delicate. These often get mushy, but here the batter is light and firm. A salty anchovy sauce eliminates any greasy taste.
Alongside we have tomato carpaccio with capers, lemon zest and fried breadcrumbs. These are riccio fiorentino tomatoes, Hassan explains with evangelical enthusiasm. He'll change the variety as we move through the season to ensure he always has the sweetest fruit.
We take cured meats and squacquerone cheese — almost thick yoghurt — with deep-fried dough balls. Ask Hassan how he chose each meat — but only if you have two hours to spare.
The kitchen is laughably tiny. You can see it through a gap in the wall, three chefs in a room the size of a wardrobe. But such delicious things keep emerging — perfectly al dente pasta, an amatriciana that's fresh and light, a deeply savoury pesto.
That said, I'm not a fan of the carbonara. There's too much sauce, making the whole thing too rich. It tastes more Italian-American than Italian-Italian. Still, carbonara is a personal thing. Everyone has a slightly different, very insistent opinion on the true path. I'd have to fight off a thousand Italian grandmothers to defend mine.
Finally, porchetta. It's remarkable — the sweetest, juiciest meat surrounded by astonishing crackling. Nobody else in London does porchetta this well. Templeton talks us round to tiramisu. Oh, go on then, and amaros for the table. The coffee in the tiramisu is old school, properly bitter, but the dish still sweet and comforting.
'We wanted to do a restaurant — although they will probably never come — that our kids would like to eat in,' James says. Something 'complex but also Roman comfort food'. He's hit the mark here.★★★★☆73 Highbury Park, London N5 1UA; lupa.restaurant