The Resy Guide to London’s Italian Restaurants

Thanks for Four Legs, then Belly, and now Tiella, the Compton Arms in Islington is now as well known for its kitchen as for its status as one of George Orwell’s favourite pubs. Tiella is the creation of Dara Klein (previously of Brawn and Sager + Wilde). Her stock in trade is rustic comfort food like fried sardines and caper mayo, braised lamb shank with lentils and mostarda, and Pugliese ciceri e tria.

Bar Lina is a new arrival on London’s aperitivo scene. You’ll find it tucked away beneath Lina Stores in Soho, in what was the deli’s old pasta kitchen. Now candlelit and dramatically dressed in deep red marble and velvet, it will seduce you into one more Syracuse Martini, one more Basil Gimlet, over snacks of beef crudo, truffle crostini, and fried gnudi with Calabrian chilli marmellata.

Sophia Massarella is part cook, part culinary archivist. What she cooks at Polentina, her singularly eccentric kitchen in a sustainable garment factory in Bow, she learned from her two grannies – one Austrian, one Italian. Lunch is a choice of a handful of dishes, such as zuppa pavese (a chicken broth with crostini, egg yolks and parmesan), scarola imbottita (stuffed escarole with anchovies and breadcrumbs) or semmelknödel with wild mushroom sauce. Polentina serves a full set menu on Fridays and Saturdays with lovingly handpicked natural wines by the glass and bottle.

Picture a trattoria and you probably picture somewhere like Brutto in Clerkenwell. The red-checked tablecloths, candles, and Chianti flasks signal old-fashioned romance. Restaurateur and Italophile Russell Norman adds his own little touches, like £5 Negronis (free to solo diners), loud music, and various monkey-themed knick-knacks. There are too many must-tries to list, but you could start with the rabbit and lemon pappardelle, a mighty T-bone, and “possibly the first authentic Tuscan panzanella in London”.

Sette is as polished and sparkling as you’d expect of a restaurant at the Bulgari Hotel. It’s Italian by way of Manhattan, and though the signature dish may be humble red sauce spaghetti (borrowed from the parent restaurant, Scarpetta in New York), the rest is Knightsbridge through and through. Lobster tagliolini, sea bass crudo with lemon confit and pink, and the ravioli cacio e pepe come recommended. As for the weekend brunch, it’s one of London’s bougiest and best. Unlimited Dom Perignon? Ma certo!

It’s like Chris Leach and David Carter (Smokestak) have taken all London’s restaurant archetypes and smooshed them into one glorious whole. Manteca in Shoreditch is the result, a nose-to-tail, live fire, fresh pasta restaurant. Nibble focaccia and home-cured coppa or bresaola and mull your moves through the menu from pig’s head fritti with Pilacca hot sauce to a whole roast lemon sole or roe deer chop via the signature strozzapreti with brown crab cacio e pepe. The wine list is exceptional, with classics alongside ‘down the rabbit hole’ picks.

Giacco’s on Blackstock Road in an independent wine bar and kitchen with a pronounced Italian accent. Start snacky with prosciutto and melon, some anchovies, or a plate of carpaccio, building slowly up to plates of homemade cappelletti with fried aubergines and ricotta, agnolotti with crab, and fazzoletti with pesto. The ever-evolving wine list is sourced from top suppliers like Ancestrel and Gergovie.

The eponymous Tom started making lasagne and delivering it by bike during the pandemic. He’s now parked the bike and set up shop at Hackney Downs Studios where he serves a weekly-changing menu centring on pasta. He gets bolder and bolder with his recipes; now alongside the O.G. beef shin lasagne, you might find squid ink tagliolini with brown shrimp or pumpkin spiced lasagne. Craft beers and natural wine from his neighbours at All Good Beer.

Ombra by the canal in east London, where Bethnal Green meets Hackney, is one of London’s finest Italian restaurants. Traditionalist it is not – the latest menu involves salty fingers, meadowsweet, shiso, and green strawberries – but the cooking’s as seasonal, local, and simple as any Italian in the motherland. What not to miss: the gnocco fritto draped with homemade prosciutto; the silky hand-rolled pasta – the one with clams and smoked butter maybe – and the highly praised tiramisù.

Cosy, convivial Trullo is the definition of a local institution. You can take a friend, a colleague, a date, a beloved auntie, and know all will leave well fed and happy. The kitchen marries British produce with Italian tradition to startlingly good effect. Witness Devon smoked eel arancini, Cornish monkfish carpaccio with muscat grapes, and Hampshire black pork chop with Castelluccio lentils and salsa verde. The all-Italian wine list is a roll call of legendary producers.

Chef Jon Lawson cooks with character from behind the counter at his buzzy little spot in Shoreditch. He adapts his small plates menu to the season, introducing puntarelle, Delica squash, black figs, and truffles when the time is right. Having trained under Theo Randall, he knows his pasta. Crab tagliolini, paccheri with hare ragù, maltagliati with borlotti beans are some of his finest.

Soho was once London’s little Italy so it feels only right and proper that family-run restaurants like Fadiga, a ‘ristorante Bolognese’ are thriving here. Zone in on the regional dishes, rarely seen in London, such as passatelli in capon broth, chicken and beef meatballs ‘alla bolognese’, and torta sbrisolona, an almond cake from Lombardy.

Luca Dusi’s labyrinthine wine cellar and restaurant in Shoreditch is the place to track down those hard-to-find wines from across Italy. He’ll find you the perfect bottle from Liguria, Valle d’Aosta, Sardegna, Piemonte – name any region – which you can enjoy on the spot with plates of gnocchi with monkfish ragout, baccalà mantecato, and bigoli with romanesco.