Meriden, Italian Restaurant Guide

This 16th-century tavern in Mill Hill is run by brothers Luca & Matteo Delnevo, whose heritage is evident in the Italian menus that are served here: “much better than the other local pub offerings” and “never disappointing”. (And now, “they also have some Asian-style dishes” as part of the offering.)

2022 Review: Set in a “lovely building” with tables under a 200-year-old olive tree, this restaurant – one of eight in a local chain – is frequently packed with regulars, who come back for its “good honest Italian fare at a reasonable price”. There’s “something for everyone on the menu”.

2024 Review: This “great local” has had an up-and-down time of it of late, with the Gerrards Cross branch under new management, and The Grocer at 91, which had pivoted to being a food shop in the pandemic, now closed. On the plus side, this “very busy” outpost is still going strong with its “reliable” (if pricey) sandwiches, salads and toasties, and they also recently opened a new Amersham venue, The Grocer at 2 (Whielden St), spanning a grocery store and café.

This “no-nonsense” Italian with “perfectly good pizzas” has been a family-friendly fixture in a railway arch by Golders Green tube station for more than four decades.

2023 Review: “Top Neapolitan pizza” (with a very wide range of choices and featuring ingredients shipped from Italy weekly) helps inspire fans of this casual, brick-walled Kilburn independent.

This “nice, no-nonsense, friendly Italian” veteran in Child’s Hill is “always full of locals”, who come for the “huge portions” of traditional, home-cooked fare, served with the benefit of a gigantic pepper grinder.

“Superbly executed”, Mediterranean-inspired small plates “which change regularly” continue to win praise for this “really charming” basement spot, which is to be found in a picture-book Georgian terrace leading up to St John-in-Hampstead church. There’s also “a well-priced wine list including many options by the glass”.

This “reliable” old stager of a restaurant in Hampstead “has hardly changed in 40 years”, during which time its fans and foes have stuck to consistent themes. The former say “you’ll always get a good Italian meal” here; the latter that “the pretty location does not make up for the below-average food!” or “dismissive” service.

A restaurant-within-a-restaurant, open in July 2025 within the town’s Crazy Bear (whose ownership was itself rejigged at the start of 2025). Well-known chef, Carlo Scotto, has come on board to bring an ambitious 14-seat chef’s table concept to the town in an open-kitchen environment whose launch PR promises ‘an intimate front-row seat to culinary artistry as it unfolds, with an atmosphere that feels more like a private dinner party than a conventional restaurant’. There are two experiences both with optional matched wines: the lighter, six-course ‘Carlo’s Edit’ (Tuesday to Saturday at 6pm) and ‘The Full Experience’ with eight courses (Tuesday to Saturday at 7.45pm). Sample dishes include Pickled Attika Kohlrabi, Langoustine, Jalapeno, Purple Shiso with Salad Burnet and a Moroccan Spiced Duck with morels.

Reopened after a five-week refurb last summer by a duo of locals with backgrounds in hotels and the music industry, this long-established ‘Pub & Dining Rooms’ is aiming to win back the prominence it once enjoyed when it opened in 2000 as one of the first places in then-gentrifying Queens Park with any foodie ambitions. It promises seasonally led, restaurant-level cooking from a chef who should be able to deliver it – Tarryn Bingle, previously of The Pem, La Trompette and Arbutus.

In the underserved environs of Abbey Road, this modern Italian bar/café is worth remembering for its “really tasty Italian tapas-type dishes and some excellent Grappa!”

Chef-patron Mario Magli’s “just fabulous neighbourhood gem” near Archway has delighted all-comers for the best part of two decades and is going from strength to strength (accounting for some diners’ best meal of the year, with fans visiting from as far afield as Balham). “Over many years, the quality and consistency has been fantastic” for “traditional trattoria dishes, sometimes with a twist” and “perfect” service, all at “fair prices”. The restaurant takes its name from the Fiat Cinquecento – another “small Italian delight!”

“Front-of-house / owner Giuseppe Gullo is charm personified at this proper local Italian” just before the railway foot-bridge in Primrose Hill, “serving Sardinian and Sicilian cuisine” (and he works closely with a Sardinian-based wine exporter to source biodynamic wines from small producers throughout Italy). The menu is concise, with a focus on regional dishes from the two islands: “decent food” if perhaps on the pricey side.

Emily Roux and husband Diego Ferrari further burnished the credentials of the Roux dynasty in 2025 with the “final, well-deserved recognition of a Michelin star” for their “lovely” destination towards the edge of Notting Hill (“at last, after six years the excellence has been recognised but we regulars have long known about its merits!”). Everything about the place is unflashy but “spot on at every level” – “precise”, “subtle and complex” cuisine “with great flavours is delivered with elegance and savoir-faire” in a “modern” environment that’s low-key but “lovely and cosy”. “The menu changes every month and always offers a tasty mixture of French and Italian inspired dishes, beautifully presented and served by the knowledgeable staff. The Italian sommelier is wonderfully enthusiastic and always steers you to something interesting and not too outrageously priced on the wine list”.

Withnail & I (filmed a street or two away) actor, Richard E Grant for many years ate weekly at this good-looking traditional Italian in Notting Hill: one of the area’s stalwart locations (with stablemates Essenza and Osteria Basilico on the same street). One first-time visitor this year also approved: “pasta with a chicken sauce plus other things and a decent bottle of wine in preparation for a visit to the Electric Cinema. Really good experience. Would definitely go again!”

This “old-school” Notting Hill Italian has been “a great crowd-pleaser for the whole family” for more than 30 years. According to one local: “you will not have a great meal but on the other hand I’ve never had a bad one” – as a result it can be “extremely busy, but the service is great” and keeps on top of things. Essenza and Mediterraneo in the same street (see also) are its younger stablemates.

2023 Review: This “friendly and cosy” independent Italian with a “good garden space” has established a comfortable niche for itself in Primrose Hill over the past dozen years. It’s run by Patrick Oberto and his partner Diana Rinaldo, who took over the site in 2011.

A Finsbury Park fixture for almost 30 years, this particularly friendly and lively Italian welcomes a loyal crowd for pizza, pasta and a decent selection of main dishes.

This Kentish Town fixture from Calabrian-born, Moroccan-heritage chef Mustapha Mouflih has achieved cult status over the past decade for its “mostly great” Italian cooking served in modest premises at very good prices – the bills held in check by “brilliant BYOB for corkage”. Ratings have dropped this year, though, with several reporters “disappointed after reading good reviews”.