La Porchetta - The home of Italian Food in London
La Porchetta is a family run restaurant and you will find us in Camden, Clerkenwell, Finsbury Park, Holborn and Islington. Our menu offers a selection of Italian favourites. Choose from a variety of soft drinks, world wines or beers to accompany your meal.
Sit down, relax and enjoy the very best pizza and pasta dishes at La Porchetta.
All In London Review
La Porchetta is a huge success!
Walking through the doors of Clerkenwell’s La Porchetta the first thing that draws the attention is the cartoon pig with pizza in hand, painted on a back wall- immediately it’s clear this is more than just another Italian as affections are kept to a minimum and the open kitchen does the talking. Part of a group of five north London restaurants, La Porchetta prides itself as being a family owned business, serving genuine Italian food at affordable prices with a warmth lacking from a lot of chains.
We begin our date night meal with a carafe of the delicious house red wine and the garlic pizza bread, a huge base with tomato, garlic and oregano that makes the dough balls of Pizza Express seem like the past. All extremely good except that it put my friend off ordering a pizza for her main. Not me however, and when the Capricciosa arrived I was having second thoughts- the size was immense and at £8.95 a bargain. The ham (salty freshness) and artichokes (moist) topped off with a perfectly cooked runny egg in the middle made this pizza the best in a long time.
My friend ordered the Spaghetti Giggi, a dish of peeled tiger prawns, cherry tomatoes, garlic, chilli and white wine served on a bed of rocket leaves. Surely there was nothing about this dish that could go wrong? Of course not; the tiger prawns had a delicate texture and were covered in just the right amount of chilli marinade while the spaghetti was cooked al dente and the rocket leaves complimented the dish with that iron packed zingyness. There were twinges of regret for my companion that she hadn’t been able to sample the Gorgonzola with pear pizza, but after wiping away her tears thoughts moved to dessert.
Incidentally, for those who like to steer clear of the carbs there’s also a selection of meat and fish dishes that look just as appealing as the rest of the menu, the Stinco di Porco (shin of pork) and salmon fillet were standouts.
When I won the argument for the tiramisu I thought I’d got the pick of the bunch, but on sampling the creamy coffee-ness it was a little short on brandy and the real champion dessert sat across from me. The Affogato, mixed scoops of ice cream drowned in espresso, was rich yet light and the perfect end for the palate.
So, La Porchetta is a huge success and after reinstalling my faith in the high street Italian with its excellent food and focus on the entire experience, I will be running back soon.
Reviewed by T.A.O
Published on Jun 16, 2011
User Reviews
MarcoP
Jun 1, 2011
A great place with great tasting pizzas! The staff are very friendly and really efficient so you can pop in for lunch if you’re on a tight schedule. They do the best pizzas at affordable prices and definitely give the bigger chains a run for their money!
I was very positively surprised, good quality food, great white house wine and seize of portions... wow... definitely too big for average person. Friendly staff, satisfaction guarantee. It was mine third GROUPON voucher and the best so far...
i was to eat in there 2 days ago.The service was perfect,the staff very friendly,and expert,specially the barman and the pizza chef,i will come back for sure.
At first I didn’t think it was going to be much cop, as their logo is this irritating cartoon pig (I dislike that sort of thing!) and also you couldn’t see outside due to the height of the window (I always like a London street view). However I got a pleasant surprise as the food was awesome, with really generous portions (salad for starter with really nice creamy mozarella and soft, ripe avacado), and my pizza was incredible! Huge in size, well cooked, with grilled veg – aubergines, courgette, olives, mozarella (as a fresh topping as well as normal melted style), pesto and tons of sun-dried tomato which I love! Usually in most places you get a few slithers but there was stacks of it!! Friendly staff, nice bootle of Valpolicella. I'll definitely go back there. Excellent.
I am a regular customer to this restaurant, and have to say that i have never had any problems, infact i cant say a bad word about it. Also it is very child friendly and the staff are always up for a bit of banter. The prices are very good, the food is always of a very good standard and the portions are very generous. I will be back for sure!
I have to say that I was very much looking forward to eating here as I had heard very good things about Exmouth Market area in general. However, I found the service to be particularly slow and impersonal. Furthermore, perhaps I was just unlucky, but I had the worst food poisoning I have ever experienced! I had to get a taxi home to Fulham (which was interrupted several times though illness!) and the taxi driver told me he had collected someone from Farringdon the week before who experienced exactly the same problem. I will never go back!
