Angel, Italian Restaurant Guide

2023 Review: This “very authentic Italian local” has been filling happy bellies in Exmouth Market for more than 20 years, with Neapolitan pizzas, pastas and other dishes – “nothing too refined, but plenty of choice and not expensive”. The only complaint: “some options are just too big and hearty”.

Fans do still hail the “fabulous meat” at Roberto Costa’s quirky Italian steakhouse group, but it has lost some of its red-blooded allure in recent years. “The restaurants look appealing and the menu looks promising”, but lower ratings bolster those who feel “the quality has dropped with expansion”, as it has grown to six venues across London (and a sister concept, Fish Game, opened in Canary Wharf in mid-2023); and at its worst, it can deliver “distinctly average steaks” at “steep prices”.

“The best vitello tonnato ever tasted” was one fan’s recommendation at Louis Korovilas’s Islington yearling, which serves a range of affordable pasta alongside Italian street-food dishes. Another supporter “raved about Noci last year, but found a recent lunch a little disappointing with cooking lacking the earlier refinement”; but even they still thought “this is a cut above the usual Italian fare and still something of a find”. In any case, Korovilas must be doing something right, as in May 2023 (too late for our survey) he launched a new offshoot in Battersea Power Station; to be followed swiftly in August 2023 by one in Shoreditch.

2023 Review: One of Italy’s recent hits, this sustainable fast-food pasta business with 12 branches arrived in Covent Garden in November 2021(and quickly opened a second in Islington in June 2022). The limited feedback in our annual diners’ poll was somewhat in tune with The Telegraph’s William Sitwell (who was so disappointed he suggested the chain “be summoned to the foreign office and expelled”): “I was so excited based on all the social media around the place: food was average (as in something you’d make at home when you’re in a rush)”.