Popolo, restaurant review: Power to the people

I’m enough of an east London OG to remember when Shoreditch was definitely not where you’d want to be seen on a Friday night. As a child, if I dropped a “t” the standard parental admonishment was “Don’t talk like that, you sound like you’re from Hoxton” — Hoxtonites being the scummiest of the scum and certainly lower in the pecking order than those of us resident a few miles up the road in salubrious 1990s Homerton.

Since then, however, this ancient parish in the vicinity of Old Street station has gone through several image overhauls. It’s been the London hipster Ground Zero (home of the “self-facilitating media node” Nathan Barley) and a played-out weekend playground for out-of-towners, but has now settled into an elegant maturity of boutique hotels and edgier design outlets. All of which is to say that many an exposed brickwork, post-industrial interior has come and gone from Rivington Street, but none have served up pasta with the same panache as Popolo.

Read all the latest restaurant news and reviews

Opened by Jon Lawson (head chef) and Munur Shah (manager) at the end of last year, Popolo’s profile is not advanced by its confusingly familiar name. The word is Italian for “people”, while the restaurant distinguishes itself from Venetian cuisine mini-chain Polpo by serving up “regional Italy, from southern Puglia all the way up to Piedmont, with plenty of Moorish and Spanish influences”.

It’s a mission statement which makes most sense with a glass of Zolla Primitivo di Manduria in hand (£49 a bottle) and a plate of its signature labneh with fried olives, chickpeas and morita chilli (£5) on the go. The cool, creamy yoghurt may get top billing but it’s the crispy-shelled, salty-centred olives that are the real star turn. Let it be known from this point on: olives must always be deep-fried. The popolo demand it.

Yes, Popolo is one of those “small plates, sharing encouraged” establishments that instinctively strike some hungry traditionalists as a bit of a swizz. The truth is, the arrangement works here, first because the plates are reasonably priced for portion size, and second because they arrive at perfectly judged intervals, making each new dish a dining experience in its own right. Just as your conversation begins to flag, lo, there’s a chicken liver bruschetta (£6), ready to be devoured and discussed.

Our table’s post-discussion consensus was that the rocket leaves atop it seemed rather sad and ineffectual, but only because the meat and oil-oozing bread beneath was so richly satisfying.

This was soon followed by that Tuscan beach holiday classic, panzanella (£8.50) as good as any I’ve had at home or abroad. The recipe calls for olive oil and fresh tomatoes, but these chunks of sourdough seemed saturated with nothing so much as pure Mediterranean sunshine.

A light and lovely hake romana with aioli and lemon (£9.80) was impressive proof that the fried olives were no one-off; these people have a way with that much-maligned ingredient, batter. The pappardelle hare ragu (£12.50) was death-row-meal good, with a mysterious coconutty sweetness that made me feel enveloped by the love of a beneficent God.

No, it wasn’t the small servings which proved most obstructive to our enjoyment of this virtually flawless food, but another scourge of modern dining: the no-reservations policy. If a buzzy new spot insists on proving its egalitarian credentials by seating on a first-come-first-served basis, surely it shouldn’t then allow the entire first floor to be reserved for a private party. No fair. But I’ll take this up with the Night Czar.

More immediately, the upstairs booking meant that despite arriving on the unfashionable side of 7pm, and being willing to wait, we had no option but to sit side-by-side at the ground-floor L-shaped bar, sandwiched between the barista machine and the kitchen. Would a table upstairs with a view of the heart of Shoreditch have been more comfortable? Probably. Did we feel the opportunity to observe the kitchen at close proximity was adequate compensation? Apologies to foodies of a more studious nature, but no.

With the possible exception of “participatory theatre”, “open kitchen” is the two-word phrase most likely to strike fear into the heart of ordinary, intimacy-avoiding Londoners. Happily then, Popolo’s kitchen and waiting staff have a barside manner as silky smooth as its burnt-honey panna cotta.

Despite lingering for far too long after the end of our meal, we never once felt rushed and the only two interruptions to our conversation were both necessary and welcome. We were given advice on how to best enjoy the labneh (“I’ve given you each a spoon because you need to make sure you get everything in each spoonful”) and then because my dining companion mentioned she’d recently joined a kickboxing class at the very gym, it turns out, that the head chef co-founded with his two brothers in 1997. How does he balance running a hot new restaurant with life as a former world kickboxing champion? A cheerful grimace and a “don’t ask”. At least we now know the secret to spending so many hours around pasta while maintaining a Vogue Italia physique.

Having no such ambitions ourselves, we moved on to dessert with gusto. The daily-changing specials feature flourless chocolate cake, as decadent as it is gluten-free, and that deliciously caramelised panna cotta, so good we ordered two. The waitress could only nod solemnly in recognition of our gluttonous wisdom.

The best brunches in London: mapped

Next time, we’d probably give the over-gelatined Sicilian cannoli cheesecake a miss, but on balance, this was a single lapse. And there will absolutely be a next time. When the menu’s only wobble is insufficient cheesecake wibble, a return visit (with a better table) is certain.

26 Rivington Street, EC2 (020 7729 4299, popoloshoreditch.com). Open Tue-Wed noon–3pm, 5.30pm–10.30pm. Thu–Sat noon–3pm, 5.30pm–11pm. About £150 for two, including wine.