Earl's Court, Italian Restaurant Guide

2024 Review: “A wonderful display of fresh fish on ice” (“including the biggest scallops with the coral attached”) greets diners arriving at this “unique Italian” in a quiet corner of Kensington, whose “cooking is precise with a light touch”.

“A reassuringly old-fashioned experience”, the Chiavarini family’s Italian restaurant across the road from the Design Museum in Kensington is still flourishing after almost 60 years – neither fading to irrelevance nor trapped in nostalgia. The cooking is inspired by the traditions of Emilia Romagna with plenty of game from the family farm in Kent, while “the service is excellent”.

2024 Review: An “attractive riverside setting” (incorporating a 45-cover outdoor terrace, complete with retractable roof) is a major selling point at star chef Robin Gill’s second opening under the ‘Maria G’ banner, on the ground floor of a shiny new residential development, in the deepest, darkest Fulham no-man’s-land near Imperial Wharf (by the big Sainsburys). Despite its out-of-the-way situation, it’s already attracting more feedback than the first Maria G, which opened two years ago. That’s also hard to find, and also in a glossy new block – this time part of a retirement village on the Kensington/Olympia borders. At both outlets, the culinary theme is Italian although SW6 concentrates more on its raw bar and pasta, with reports praising “some innovative dishes” (The Telegraph’s William Sitwell was also a fan, proclaiming it a “chic oasis” with “delicate and authentic Italian food”). Reports in our annual diners’ poll on W8 were scant (but the Daily Mail’s Tom Parker Bowles found it a “lush, lovely Italian oasis… [in] the sterile, anodyne surroundings of those deluxe flats”).