Shoreditch's Passione Vino overhauls food offer

Luca Dusi’s Leonard Street venue previously only served cheese, cured meats and a few snacks, but now the menu is ‘far more developed and serious’.

Dishes include Veneto-style Polpette boiled for hours as a bollito; baccalà mantecato (whipped cod served on thin slices of polenta); frittata di spaghetti with Parmesan and Asiago cheese; bigoli al pomodoro (long, thick pasta with tomato sauce); and ‘porco’ tonnato (a riff on vitello tonnato that uses pork instead of veal). 

The new plates have been devised by former Hill and Szrok and Lyle’s chef Pascal Lazzarotto, who joined the business in 2019. 

There is still no menu for either food or wine, with Dusi saying his "overarching ambition is to take every visitor on their own tailored journey that matches them with the perfect wine for any mood, occasion or budget’. 

Dusi opened in Passione Vino in 2003 with an aim to bring small, artisanal, Italian wine producers to the UK. He supplies a number of top London restaurants including The Clove Club, The River Café and Hélène Darroze at The Connaught. 

The repositioning of the new food offering coincides with the arrival of Dusi’s new wine label Sassi, which offers wine from Italy’s Abruzzo region. 

The organic wines are described by Dusi as “maximum result, minimum intervention... straightforward but Passione Vino 101%".