It’s always a good sign if you hear the warm, vowel-rich song of Italian when walking into an Italian restaurant. From the staff to the customers crowded in large familial groups, this is the story at Bocconi, an affordable neighbourhood ristorante with basic Italianate decor. The food, like the interiors, is beautifully bare-boned. Think well-priced cicchetti (small hot and cold dishes), pastas and meaty mains. Quality ingredients like portly crescents of porcini and fried rings of squid were not overly fretted with and instead left to speak for themselves. A cube of pistachio tiramisu with defined, velvety strata stole the show. With a glittering of buttery green nuts and a spike of well-infused espresso, this dish didn’t just speak for itself – it sang.
Everything else? It ranged from the ‘eh, just fine’ to the not so fine, such as the mono-textured truffle and mushroom tagliatelle special. The ponging truffle paste (there were no shavings in sight) and gummy pasta (about ten minutes too late to be called al dente) combined to deliver a sad, sit-in-your-stomach consistency.
Thankfully, between the prices, the earnest family service and the buzzy crowd, even a bad dish couldn’t spoil the whole meal.