Wellfield Road, Cardiff. 029 2240 2200 / www.porrocardiff.com
Food ***** Atmosphere ****
Porro’s new establishment on one of Roath’s favourite foodie roads, Wellfield Road, follows on from their success at their 2015 Llandaff High Street restaurant. From the team behind The Potted Pig, Porro serve British food with heavy Italian influences; neither here nor there and remarkably interesting. The restaurant itself is well thought out and spacious, with perfect lighting and a simple aesthetic design that doesn’t distract from the main affair: the food.
For starters, I sample ox cheek arancini with salsa verde and polpetto (a Monmouthshire lamb and Herefordshire pork meatball with sourdough toast). The arancini is succulent and bursting with flavour, making the most of the tender ox cheek texture, while the polpetto may well be the nicest meatball I have had, similar in taste to the most beautiful meatloaf. Next up, fennel roast pork belly with hispi cabbage, baked shallots and a pork croquette, and pollo Milanese with lemon, capers, and rosemary and garlic potatoes. The pork belly is perfectly cooked and adorned with crispy crackling and a fennel sauce, a contrast to the almost melt-in-your-mouth pork. A test of a good chef is an ability to not only effectively use, but celebrate, the simplest parts of a meal which are often overlooked, and Porro pass with flying colours for their treatment of the cabbage. The chicken is juicy, and the accompanying potatoes, like all of the food so far, well-seasoned. I usually find myself reaching for the salt and pepper mills, and the fact it didn’t occur to me once during the meal is testament to their ability.
To finish, we try a selection of cheeses and a dark chocolate torte with hazelnut ice cream, and with a nice grappa, it rounds off the night perfectly. What works well about Porro is that it shows off British produce perfectly, displayed through an Italian lens, and all offered for a very reasonable price.
words LUKE OWAIN BOULT