La Bocca is good. Really good. And fun, with a dining room layout that invites relaxing quickly & focusing on the two essential aspects of any dining experience: the food, and your friends.
That said, La Bocca has some early teething problems, which are surprising given the pretty scathing review by SvD yesterday morning (in my opinion undeserved). We went last night, so the surprise was that - in light of the review - they weren't well above their 'A game'. However, the problems were relatively minor: we waited at the door for a few minutes before we were acknowledged and shown our table; they had no English menus (a problem for non-Swedish speakers); we shared a couple of antipasti, and it took a few minutes to bring side-plates; bread was brought during the primo course.
All of which was swept away by the food. My antipasto was the Melanzane: light, creamy, flavorful eggplant, with an incredible marinara sauce. I licked the plate. My primo was the raviolone with oxtail & chanterelles in a sage butter sauce. Beautiful, delicious, and near-perfect: it was very slightly 'al dente' for me, but for others may have been undercooked. I inhaled it, though. For my secondo, I had the braised ox cheek with red wine. Flat-out delicious! One of my friends had the Octopus, which had an insanely good tomato sauce, but -for me - the octopus was a wee bit tough. He loved it, and licked his plate too. For dessert, I had the filled doughnut, whose light creme filling and real doughnut flavor was a treat. For wine, we had a Barolo and a white from Lombardy. Both very delicious, from an extensive wine list offering many reasonably priced wines.
The food was delicious, but if you're looking for out-of-the-box imaginative, this isn't your place. If you're looking for really good comfort/soul food & a fun place to enjoy with friends, this is definitely it.
Our waiter was great, and really friendly. Overall, it was a great experience, and I would have given 4.5 or 5 stars, but for the snafus early on, which were avoidable. Nota: its really expensive. We spent SEK 7,000 for 4 pax (2 wines). OK, it IS Östermalm, so shouldn't be a surprise. But some people may feel that for that kind of money, they should be getting an out-of-body experience. Which is fair.
We had a great time. You should go. read more