With a buzzy Notting Hill trattoria, meet the Tuscan duo behind one of West London’s most atmospheric new lunch spots.
Trogolo may look modest from the outside, but it’s got some serious pedigree – its owners are Lara Boglioni, managing director of London-based, Italianate lifestyle brand Petersham Nurseries, and her winemaker husband Giovanni Mazzei, heir to the 600-year-old Tuscan wine empire Marchesi Mazzei. The couple are based with their children in Chianti Classico but keep a foot in west London – and it’s here that they saw an opportunity to create a restaurant that reminded them of home.
“Trogolo means ‘trough’ in Italian,” says Mazzei, “and that’s because the Tuscan approach to cuisine is very down-to-earth. We want this to be the kind of place for enjoying long, loud, generous meals with friends.” But all the same, adds Boglioni, “it is Italian trattoria-meets-Notting-Hill, so expect something slightly more contemporary – the team wear Kappa tracksuits and we play Italian disco from the 1970s and 1980s.”
The long, narrow space has been warmed with dusky-pink limewash; marble tables are dressed with butcher’s paper placemats and potted plants; seating is wooden benches and rustic-looking stools. Cases of wine are stacked in every corner; a tiny interior courtyard lets in light from above, while downstairs more tables are ranged alongside a counter groaning with salamis, rounds of cheese and a leg of ham. Trogolo is cozy, noisy, convivial – and very appetizing.
The seasonal Tuscan menu is delicious – artichoke frittata, beef carpaccio with white truffle, pappardelle with wild boar. But the real draw here is the wine list, and its preponderance of interesting Tuscan labels including Mazzei’s passion project IPSUS.
In less than ten years, this single vineyard, 100 percent Sangiovese Chianti Classico has gained a following bordering on cult, prized for its freshness, elegant power, and particular sense of place (IPSUS is Latin for ‘himself’).
The fruit for IPSUS hails from a single, 16 acres vineyard in the medieval hamlet of Il Caggio, a 370 acres plot of land which the Mazzei family acquired in 2006. Owned outright by the family, it’s what the French might call a ‘monopole’.
“We knew at once this vineyard had something very special,” recalls Mazzei. “It produced Sangiovese like we’d never seen before: very fruit-forward, very much more on the red fruit than the darker fruit – lovely drinkability, in a way that’s very modern, very contemporary. It’s very light, but like a kilo of feathers – you still have the weight of a kilo but it’s very fluffy, with supple tannins that are almost melting at the end.”
The first IPSUS vintage, released in 2020, was 2015 – and Mazzei has evolved the winemaking since then, introducing bigger barrels and ceramic vessels to keep the wine “bright and shining”. IPSUS is a Chianti Classico Gran Selezione, the highest classification in the region.
I taste a vertical of IPSUS from 2016 to 2021 with Mazzei, and I can really sense the wine’s energy ramp up from 2019 – it develops wonderful juiciness and tension. 2020 is almost acrobatic.
Mazzei describes the newly-released 2021 (a vintage which has already been classed as one of the ‘great vintages of the century’ for Tuscany, by fine wine merchant Corney & Barrow) as “my vintage, our level – where we like to be.” It bursts with mouthwatering notes of pomegranate, blood orange, cherry; the tannins are silky and fine weave.
Production of IPSUS is limited to between 4,500 and 5,500 bottles a year. So the choice of vintages and formats on offer at Trogolo is particularly exceptional. It’s the only restaurant in London, for example, to have IPSUS by the jeroboam (the 2020 and 2021 vintages are being cellared for another a year before they hit the list).
I arrive for lunch at Trogolo at a very un-Italian 12.30pm as I have to make my departure by 3pm – but I get the sense, as I step out into the cold, that the diners behind me are only just getting started…
Lara Boglioni’s five favourite trattorias in Tuscany
Trattoria Camillo, Florence
A classic – one of the most elegant and refined trattorias in Florence whilst still being cozy and delicious. They have inspired our bottarga, egg and celeriac salad and we always think of them as a point of reference.
La Vecchia Bettola, Florence
My go-to, I love it and am in admiration of the number of covers they manage to do daily from the tiny kitchen. Always the same staff, faces you know and best penne a la bettola (vodka pasta) around. They have long communal tables and an amazing atmosphere with everyone squeezed in next to each other on wooden stools – our stools were inspired from them!
La Taverna di Vagliagli, Vagliagli
This is where we take the kids on Sundays and friends when they come to stay, it’s where we end up after our weekend walks – its cozy and warm, the chef is grilling over an open fire at the entrance, we know all the staff and they have an amazing wine list. We love it.
Da Paddelina In Greve, Chianti
A very authentic trattoria where game plays a large part. It’s filled with country men and hunters, and the owner will come to your table and recite Dante in a way that’s difficult to see elsewhere – he knows all the phrases and is amazing to listen to.
Trattoria Capounto, Montelupo
This place is as it’s called, “unto” [an expression in Italian that means ‘greasy’ as in ‘greasy hands/plate/stained tablecloth’] – classic dishes, absolutely no frills and seriously local.
IPSUS 2021 En Primeur will be released in the next few months. Enquire here.
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