Lardo owner Nathan Woodhead has installed a new kitchen and dining room upstairs at the Rye Lane pub, complete with its own Negroni aperitivo bar.
FERAL’s bar snacks will be available throughout the venue, which local drinks company Gosnells has recently refurbished as a neighbourhood pub and music bar.
Created by Lardo head chef Marta Sandini, the menu will centre on ‘folds’, flatbreads designed to be eaten one-handed.
Options include cheese and pickle with cacio e pepe, caramelised onion and chunky house pickle, and carbonara with guanciale, egg yolk, pecorino and black pepper.
The kebab fold comes with spiced lamb, pickled onion, cabbage, ranch and hot sauce, while the chicken shop fold is filled with jerk chicken thigh, cheddar, garlic sauce and parmesan.
Bar snacks include truffle cacio e pepe arancini with mayo, amatriciana arancini with Calabrian chilli honey and a five-spice lasagne skewer.
Larger dishes include gnocchi with vodka sauce, cacio e pepe bigoli with optional guanciale, and spaghetti and meatballs.
There are two desserts: tiramisu and soft serve.
Woodhead says: “Everything I do tends to have a bit of a mischievous streak and with FERAL, we’re letting it take over the kitchen. There’s deep-fried lasagne, curry sauce getting into places it probably shouldn’t, and flatbread designed to leave one hand free for your drink. We take feeding people seriously, and we want them to have a laugh. Order another plate, drag a mate down, get sauce on your shirt. We’ll look after you.”
Lardo opened in London Fields in 2013 and built a following for its Italian-inspired cooking, with pizza and pasta at the centre of the menu.
Sandini took over as head chef earlier this year, introducing a more frequently changing menu while retaining Lardo’s core pizzas.
The Italian-born chef previously cooked at Ana Roš’s Hiša Franko in Slovenia, as well as Luca and Naughty Piglets in London.