Bluewater, Italian Restaurant Guide

This smart neighbourhood restaurant and bar from Stuart Gillies, for many years Gordon Ramsay’s right-hand man, “never lets you down with quality, value or service – can’t get enough of this place”. The menu offers a mixture of classic British and modern European cuisine, with bottomless brunch on Saturdays and traditional roast on Sundays. There’s now a sibling restaurant on similar lines, Number Eight in Sevenoaks.

2022 Review: “Everything you could wish for in a local”, say fans of this quirky Italian, in a tiny but characterful former guards’ room in the grounds of the old Woolwich Arsenal. “High-quality food is freshly prepared in an amazing setting with friendly, professional staff. A joy!”.

Lucky Lee residents have this “fabulous family-owned Italian eatery” as their local – Enzo Masiello and his team turn out accomplished wood-fired pizza, home-made pasta and breakfast with a Calabrian twist (shakshuka with nduja, for instance). The restaurant is named after Enzo’s papa.

A “dependably good” meal is not to be taken for granted when eating out in Deptford, but is to be found here at one of the area’s brightest sparks: a high-quality, rather stylish café on a corner of the high street serving a pasta-focused lunch menu and an evening menu of more ambitious dishes.

2024 Review: Diminishing feedback in recent years makes it hard to recommend this “noisy and fun”, family-run Sardinian on Brockley Rise quite as resoundingly as we used to. Fans, though, still say it’s “a super, local Italian trattoria, with a great menu: especially the quirky ice cream and sorbet flavours”.

2022 Review: By the Stratford entrance to the Olympic park, this all-day Italian restaurant and café arrived in autumn 2019 and has since spawned a couple of Essex-based spin-offs. The space – with big windows – is modern, but the food is traditional: arancini, pasta, pizza from the oven…

“Simple pasta done very well” lives up to the billing at this straightforward chain, which added a branch on Baker Street complete with outside terrace to its other three locations at the start of 2024. They are “nothing amazing, but the food is good, the service friendly, and it is a very easy option” when out and about or “when cooking just feels like a chore”.

Opening its 10th branch in 2025 – amidst the towers of Canary Wharf – this much commented- on chain is leaving behind its Soho roots – as a quaint old deli of 75 years’ standing – and is now in full-on ‘roll-out’ mode. Fans still find it “very impressive for a chain that’s growing so fast” and tip its “lovely mint-green” outlets as “an ideal place to meet and enjoy authentic pasta and Italian dishes”. Some branches, though, are better than others: in particular the “friendly and relaxed Marylebone branch at the junction of Wigmore Street is a winner”. Others, though, can show the strains of expansion: “What’s the point? It’s neither stand-out, nor cheap and cheerful. Unexceptional pasta is served in a so-so ambience. I am not sure I get it??”

1970s Roman cinema is the thematic backdrop to this June 2025 opening from the extrovert, French-owned Big Mamma (the people behind Gloria, Ave Mario, Circolo Popolare, Jacuzzi et al) which brings the group’s familiar OTT take on Italian dining to Canary Wharf – this time in a two-storey waterside setting with an open kitchen. Early views suggest it’s typically big on atmosphere and retro style with cocktails and gelato also featuring in the mix.

2023 Review: “All ages have a great time in true Italian style” at this Sydenham fixture, a “family-owned trattoria with a devoted following of regulars” who come for the classic, fresh-cooked pasta and pizzas.