Il Baretto W1

There’s nothing particularly fashionable about the layout or design either. There’s a bar upstairs, but the dining room is in the oddly-configured basement. A low-ceilinged space, it’s always been infamously noisy. If designer David D’Almada (who also did the ‘Maison’) had in mind softening the experience, he hasn’t – on the basis of our visit – succeeded. The best advice is still: try to avoid sitting next to loud people.

The somewhat confusing menu presentation tends to disguise the fact that there is, at heart, a very standard, and quite wide-ranging Italian ‘offer’. If you want a simple meal – such as the beef carpaccio and lasagne we sampled – that’s absolutely fine. Spiritually – not literally, of course – there are still Chianti bottles hanging over the tables.

What distinguishes this place from your standard trat, however, is that the quality of the cooking is consistently good-enough-to-want-to-go-back-for, and service is efficient. Prices, by quality restaurant standards, are reasonable too. We had the most expensive pasta (home made tagliolini with langoustines, £11), and it was exemplary.

It almost seems churlish to say so, but puddings can come as a bit of a let-down. All a fiver, they are commendably reasonably priced. After what has come before, however, both range and realisation were just too prosaic for comfort.

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