01 / ABOUT THE PLACE
About this place
At Lugol, Italian classics meet ingredients associated with Kyoto, including Kujo spring onions, sake lees and miso. The menu offers appealing alternatives if you are in the mood for pasta with a local twist. The miso carbonara combines fresh linguine with a rich, sweet-and-savoury miso cream sauce, Kyoto red chicken and Kujo spring onions. The menu also notes that you can instead order bacon carbonara, without the spring onions or miso sauce. Choose between the deeper flavour of miso and a more familiar combination.
Another distinctive dish is gnocchi in a sake lees and Gorgonzola cream sauce. The gnocchi is made with Kitaakari potatoes from Hokkaido, and the rich, blue-cheese-heavy sauce is fragrant with sake lees. Lunch sets listed on the menu include onion and potato soup and house-made focaccia, making the choice between pasta and gnocchi part of the midday appeal. One diner who ordered bacon carbonara at lunch described the sauce as creamy, rich and good at clinging to the pasta. Another chose tomato-sauce pasta with anchovies and black olives, and noted that the set’s onion and potato soup had soft, tender pieces of vegetable. For a lunch with a different character from the cream-based dishes, tomato pasta with soup and focaccia is another option.
To start with a small plate, try the marinated lotus root, which retains some bite and is served with a sauce of black olives, anchovies and sun-dried tomatoes. There is also a salad of Parmesan and mushrooms. A diner who had the salad at lunch said the cheese on top made a particular impression. Both could work as dishes to share, or the salad could accompany a pasta lunch.
Drinks include Italian natural wines by the glass in sparkling, white and red styles, as well as Peroni on tap. The lunch set drinks list includes coffee and tea, with wine and draft beer also listed for an additional charge. To finish, there is tiramisu made with mascarpone cream and espresso-soaked cake, or torta caprese, a chocolate cake from Capri that is served warm with vanilla gelato.
