Bloomsbury, Italian Restaurant Guide

“Really nice, and often outstanding dishes” are acclaimed by most reports on this former greasy spoon in Bloomsbury from ex-Rochelle Canteen chef Anna Tobias and the 40 Maltby Street team: and they say the simple, modern bistro dishes are backed up by a “very fair wine list” with a “good selection of natural wines”. (A more sceptical, minority view is that “although the place hits the nerve of the Zeitgeist – with food suggesting honesty and simplicity, complete with an air of sophistication – its success is a pricey London phenomenon possibly explained by the decline in home cooking”).

“What a joyful experience!” – “anyone who doesn’t love Ciao Bella is mad”. This buoyant Bloomsbury fixture serves “unpretentious authentic Italian home cooking in a really great atmosphere” that’s “somewhat chaotic when busy” and “never changes”. After retiring from her 20-year career as a critic last year, Marina O’Loughlin revealed that this is where she eats out when paying for herself. Foodie flourishes are entirely absent though – its prime selling point is offering “good value for money in such a high-cost city”.

“A top party place” – Paris-based Big Mamma Group’s “huge and buzzing” omaggio to the Sicilian trattoria in Fitzrovia boasts an “amazing atmosphere” buoyed up by ongoing Insta-success which helps draw in an energetic crowd skewed to twenty- and thirty somethings. The food’s not for the cognoscenti of Italian cucina, but it is “consistent” and low cost.

“Awesome, thin and crispy pizza” has built quite a following for this “fast, simple, really cheap and really cheerful” Goodge Street spot – where, “unless strip lighting, functional metal tables and chairs are your thing, the ambience is forgettable”. Celebrating its quarter-centenary this year as ‘The People’s Pizzeria’, it now has a branch in Camden and ‘click & collect’ kitchens in Wood Green, Colindale and Croydon.

Regulars say this “proper, family-run trattoria in Covent Garden [unusual in itself, Ed] could be in any city in Italy, with a narrow dining room and cosy tables” – “genial host Andrea will recommend items on the menu and the food and wine are excellent”. But its old-fashioned and personal appeal can pass some people by completely: “if you want to know what dining in a slightly run-down, cramped restaurant in the 1950s was like, this is your place…”

2021 Review: “Neapolitan influences are evident in the choice of ingredients, and the wood-burning oven makes for good, chewy, charred crusts, unlike most high-street pizzas” – so say fans of this global chain, whose HQ is indeed in Naples. Not everyone is impressed, though, and ratings are dragged down by those who feel it’s merely an “everyday” choice: “OK for a bog-standard group, but not great”.

The food of Emilia-Romagna is the inspiration for this Italian duo in Shoreditch and Fitzrovia. They major in pasta, with sliced meats, cheeses and wines from the region as back-up, and all reports say the food is of a good standard.

Celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, this traditional Italian in Fitzrovia is “chaotic and very small”, so you’re “packed like sardines” – but that’s part of the appeal to fans, who reckon it’s “great fun” and “worth returning to”.

The timing of its debut, during Covid 19, couldn’t have been harder for this Covent Garden three-year-old, and it has yet to attract a huge volume of feedback or a settled view from diners. One fan says “you get a twist on Italian cooking, and boy do they get it right” in a “superb, light and airy space that’s ideal for a business meal”. To a critic it’s “bizarre eating in what feels like, and actually is, a hotel lobby, with some dishes very clumsily seasoned”.

“A good find for a pre-theatre meal” – this “efficient and friendly” Covent Garden dining room is quite stylish for somewhere inside a modern chain hotel, and serves an offbeat mix of Peruvian and Italian dishes: “a great selection”, with “lots of small-plate choices and interesting combinations” – “just enough to choose easily and all delicious”.

“Scrumptious food, Soho ambience: a winner!” – Cameron Emirali and Luke Wilson’s “intimate” fixture has won renown above its size and inspires feedback from diners living all over London. The food from the open kitchen “is amazing and interesting” and “it’s a place to come back to” (“I’ve eaten at 10 Greek 20+ times, I’ve never had one bad mouthful of food”). Top Tip – ask for their ‘Little Black Book’ of ‘rarer wine gems’.

“A proper first-date venue” – this “very sophisticated” and “inviting” eight-year-old brasserie in Covent Garden “delivers on all aspects of an excellent restaurant”, including highly competent cooking, professional standards and an elegant interior. Top Tip – the pre-theatre set menu is more ambitious than most.

“A corner independent Italian in the underserved backstreets opposite King’s Cross and St Pancras” and “a short walk from the stations”. Perhaps it’s too uneventful to make much of a trip, but fans say it’s “well worth seeking out if you are in the area” for “fresh pasta and tasty, simple dishes at fair prices”. (The original venture was actually a still-existing sibling of the same name in Camden Town, on which we receive much more limited feedback).

“We love the pistachio decor and the spacious seating”, say fans of this expanding chain, which had operated as a treasured old deli in Soho for over 75 years before starting to branch out as a pasta-chain in 2018. Impressions of it are something of a mixed bag though. To fans, its stylised outlets are “very convenient” and “can be trusted for a good-value and enjoyable experience with excellent food” (mostly pasta) in “sensible portions”. On the downside, though, are a fair number of diners to whom it’s a good concept whose execution is “perfectly fine but unexciting” (“starters good, pasta average-to-good, but compared with folk who had raved to me about other branches, I was left with a sense of ‘meh?’”). Still, their backers are enthusiastic and this year they added new locations in Greek Street and South Kensington.

Tucked away in a new development near Tottenham Court Road tube (part of Ilona Rose House), this large and expensively designed October 2023 newcomer is the first London spin-off from a Parisian group. No survey feedback as yet, but in her November 2023 report The Guardian’s Grace Dent gave cautious approval to its “fancy pizza, titivated pappardelle and hyped-up tiramisu”: despite “expecting very little”, she judged the food “more than decent” (particularly the “huge, sloppy, soft-based and floofy-edged” pizza) and the overall venture “a vast, daft restaurant in the heart of tourist land, but… also much better than it needs to be”. Top Tip – it has a fair amount of outside seating on its terrace.