South Kensington, Italian Restaurant Guide

The Mayfair original of this small group is celebrating its tenth year, with a Belgravia sibling and café-style offshoots in similarly chichi Chelsea and Kensington. It channels a retro ‘dolce vita’ vibe, with an Italian menu that “delivers on the brief if nothing more”. The latest addition is an all-day café, which opened in December 2023 next door to the Dover Street flagship.

This “fantastically reliable spot for homemade pasta and Tuscan staples” on a Chelsea corner celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and is arguably “either a relic or a classic… or maybe just a restaurant that knows what it is good at”. “Relaxed and informal”, with “friendly staff under the command of the wonderful Paz” – “it’s an easy place to dine on your own”. “Another plus is that practically the whole menu is also available as tapas/small dishes”.

“You are always made welcome by the family at this well-established Italian restaurant” in Chelsea. “I was searching for an Italian nearby and was guided here by Harden’s – a delight! with an attractive setting and delicious and well-presented cooking”. (It’s nowadays run by the sons of the founder Lucio Altana, who spent many years as maître d’ of Princess Di’s old favourite, San Lorenzo in Knightsbridge).

Near the Albert Hall, on a quirky site built in the Venetian Gothic style to please Queen Victoria, this “typically bustling family-run Italian” opened in 1967, and offers a “standard menu, with properly cooked pasta” and dependable pizza. “Kids are really well looked after, just like being in Italy” – as Princess Diana found, when she used to take Wills and Harry out for a treat from nearby Kensington Palace.

A “reliable local” fixture for more than 25 years almost opposite Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, this “good-value”, “buzzy” café serves “very good Italian food in a relaxed setting”. It’s “nothing fancy, but the sort of place you can take your children or your grandparents and everyone will feel very much at home”.

Review: “We love the pistachio decor and the spacious seating”, say fans of this expanding chain, which had operated as a treasured old deli in Soho for over 75 years before starting to branch out as a pasta-chain in 2018. Impressions of it are something of a mixed bag though. To fans, its stylised outlets are “very convenient” and “can be trusted for a good-value and enjoyable experience with excellent food” (mostly pasta) in “sensible portions”. On the downside, though, are a fair number of diners to whom it’s a good concept whose execution is “perfectly fine but unexciting” (“starters good, pasta average-to-good, but compared with folk who had raved to me about other branches, I was left with a sense of ‘meh?’”). Still, their backers are enthusiastic and this year they added new locations in Greek Street and South Kensington.