Bankside, Italian Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: “Quality Italian beefsteaks” – most notably from the Piedmontese Fassone breed – are showcased in style at Genovese owner, Roberto Costa’s, “unique” steakhouse group, where at each branch you “enter through the butcher’s shop” and “you can tell the staff which cut you want”. “The well-hung rump steak is absolutely delicious” and “a great selection of Italian wines” helps make it the perfect place to kill off an evening.

2021 Review: Gordon Ramsay’s “Italian-leaning” warehouse conversion in Southwark, with an indoor ‘olive grove’ complete with trees, pleases some with its “giant portions of great food” and “fantastic cocktails”. Far too many reporters this year, though, complain of a “sterile” aspect to its “industrial” decor, and dismiss the fare as mightily “uninspired”.

2021 Review: “A cramped City Italian with good food”, this traditional venue off Bow churchyard “generally performs well” and (in non-Covid times) is “packed at lunchtime – particularly at the tables outside, when weather permits”. “Portions are huge” and there’s “a fantastic list of regional Italian wines, some of which you might not find elsewhere”. Ratings dropped in the last survey year, though, with the odd ‘off’ report.

2021 Review: “Bellissimo!” – Tim Siadatan and Jordan Frieda’s Borough Market four-year-old remains one of the capital’s best options on a budget. The formula is simple: “no reservations, no frills”: just “superlative, freshly made pasta” from a “compact and great value menu”. “Arrive ultra-early to dodge the worst of the perma-queues”, although “the line moves relatively quickly, and their beeper system means you can go for a drink and come back to get your table”. In early 2020, just before Covid-19 struck, they absolutely crushed it with the opening of an outstanding follow-up in svelte, airy, polished-concrete Shoreditch premises. Trading in EC2 since they re-opened post-pandemic has remained deservedly strong for an incredible value destination.

Review: “A tiny restaurant with a big heart… and wonderful pasta” – the “transition from great Italian deli to restaurant is a big success” at this landmark, 75-year-old Soho store, which morphed last year from pure retail to providing an “excellent, counter-dining experience at moderate prices” nearby. “If you love pasta, this is the place to go” – “delicately silky, with the most fantastic sauces” – and it’s “a brilliant stop-off before film, theatre etc”. It’s not going to take 75 years to turn this rip-roaring success into a chain, though: branch no. 2 opened in the second half of 2019 in one of King’s Cross’s ‘heritage buildings’: ‘an 100-cover outfit decorated in the same pale green-and white-stripes that diners in Soho have come to know’.