Fernando Trocca – Food for Thought

It may have been the former home to the London College of Music, but the 310-year-old building on Great Marlborough Street now whistles its own tune in its latest incarnation as the restaurant Sucre. The sumptuous restaurant and bar is the concoction of the revered Argentine chef Fernando Trocca and award-winning bartender Renato “Tato” Giovannoni, who exported Sucre — and its accompanying bar Abajo — 6,916 miles from the belly of Buenos Aires to the backstreets of Soho late last summer. 

Billed as a “reimagining” of Trocca’s flagship Buenos Aires restaurant, Soho’s Sucre aims to reflect a story that is a “conversation of Latin American and Spanish, Italian and other European influences” with a menu that charts the story of Trocca’s immigrant background as well as that of the European adventurers who crossed the Atlantic to make their way to his native Argentina. 

Born in 1966, Trocca is somewhat of a culinary celebrity in his native country and is instantly recognisable due to his statement look of a bushy beard, coiffed hair, and chunky black-rimmed glasses — an avant-garde hipster if you ever did spot one.

“Growing up in Argentina was beautiful,” Trocca says of his childhood, “I loved living in the city, enjoying time with my friends and family. It was here that I inherited the passion for food from my maternal grandmother Serafina who very much instilled the love of cooking and gastronomy in me.” 

Trocca began his career in the restaurants of Buenos Aires in the mid-80s, where he honed his craft in the kitchens of renowned chefs such as Francis Malmann and Gato Dumas. He would continue his training in Italy, France, Spain and the US, and it was here that he fine-tuned his style of Argentine-European cooking. “Being able to travel to Europe and the United States was one of the most important things I did in my career,” he says, “it influenced me as a cook, and as a person.”

In 2001, he opened Sucre in Buenos Aires. Timing-wise, it seemed reckless and irresponsible. It was only a month before the financial crisis of 2002, but the restauranter refused to let poor timing dictate Sucre’s fortune. “We never knew what was coming, we only knew it was another bad economic moment for Argentina,” he tells me. “It was a real blow when it happened, but curiously, before all the bad forecasts, Sucre was, and still is, a complete success.” If Trocca were a betting man, he’d be on the money as Sucre became an instantaneous hit and has since been regularly featured on the Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants.

Two decades later, Trocca and Tato decided to package Sucre up and ship it first-class to London. “It was, and continues to be, a great challenge,” he says when reflecting on the decision, “but I think the most important thing is to take things seriously and professionally. Trust in what you do, what you like, and go for it.”

A worthy feat, as you can’t help but feel stupefied as you are ushered into the palatial restaurant. With 123 covers, Sucre is poised gracefully in what was once the College’s high-ceilinged concert hall. Designed by Noriyoshi Muramatsu (also responsible for ROKA Dubai, Zuma Boston, and Hutong Miami), the Japanese architect has skilfully paid homage to the building’s faded history as a concert hall but has also included industrial features for a contemporary feel.

But it is his introduction of a series of bespoke chandeliers, comprised of over a thousand cut glass decanters, that creates a wondrous corridor of light in Sucre and makes dining in the restaurant an eye-popping spectacle.

The pièce de résistance of Sucre is the orchestra-like open kitchen that the restaurant has been built around. Fitted with an open fire pit or “parilla” and a wood oven, dishes are cooked over charcoal, using embers rather than live flames. Depending on when you’re sat, you can sometimes feel the wafts of heat from the culinary concerto as the chefs sharpen their knives and frizzle up ingredients behind. Here, “old world flavours” are married with “modern ideas” through the wondrous art of Latin American open-fire cooking.

As for the menu, expect satchels of oozy aged cheddar and onion empanadas, stone bass tostada with soy and lime, saffron risotto with veal ossobuco, cod with onion in a shellfish sauce, wild mushroom fideua with wild garlic, lamb shoulder with spring peas and salsa verde and, of course, an Argentine-inspired menu wouldn’t be complete without an 800g bone-in ribeye to share with chimichurri and fries. Don’t forget to indulge in the last act of pudding, where their dulce de leche fondant will leave you groaning in bliss.

And the fun doesn’t stop there. You can head downstairs for a nightcap at Abajo — the idea of Trocca’s close friend, the award-winning Argentinan bartender and bar owner Tato Giovannoni. The bar interiors and the menu is inspired by the “colour and rebellion” of Buenos Aires in 1983 and all the colour, culture and music that followed a dismal period of military rule.

The bar menu of colourful highballs focuses on Latin American spirits and old-school, lesser-known ingredients. Expect illuminated cocktails such as Something Blue, a mix of gin with mezcal, blue spirulina and tonic or Something Red, a play on Argentina’s iconic Amaro and Cola featuring amaro, Maraschino liqueur, cherries and pink grapefruit soda.

“We want people to leave Sucre and Abajo thinking that they had a great night,” says Trocca, “that they ate well, listened to good music, were well attended and catered for, and of course want to come back!”

In that case, job done.

Fernando Trocca’s recipe for wild mushroom fideua

Serves 4

Ingredients

600g angel hair noodles (pre-toasted in olive oil)
1 tbsp onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 red pepper, diced
2 tbsp tomato pulp
Vegetable broth as needed
200g wild mushroom mix 

Method

Sauté the onion, garlic and pepper for 10 minutes.

Add the tomato paste and cook for another 5 minutes on a very low heat.

In a separate pan, sauté the mushrooms with a dash of olive oil for 7 minutes.

Now mix it all together in one pan and cover with the vegetable broth. 

Simmer until the pasta is cooked (approx. 7-8 minutes)