Five New(ish) Italian Restaurants That Are Very Good

Osteria Vibrato, Soho
Burro, Covent Garden
Bar Etna, Newington Green
Tiella, Bethnal Green
Martino’s, Sloane Square

On Tuesday evening I returned from my honeymoon in Tuscany and pretty much immediately began having papparedella alla cinghiale withdrawals. You know the symptoms. Shivering sweats over an Atis salad. Hallucinatory dreams about oversized breadsticks. Attempts to kiss your bemused server at Gail’s on both cheeks and ask how her nonna is. But as I surfaced this morning from another fugue state in which young Jacopo doused me in Aqua Panna somewhere deep inside a valley of cypress trees, I realised that help was at hand. London is in the middle of a renewed Italian restaurant obsession this summer, having graduated from its (admittedly lovely) French bistro phase of 2022-2025. Our cup now overflows with osterias, trattorias, enotecas, ristorantes, and locandas (incidentally the planned names of my first five children.) Here, in no particular order, are the five that I have earmarked to aid my recovery.

1. Osteria Vibrato, Soho

Vibrato’s name comes from the musical term for a vocal effect — a neat nod to co-owner and arch host Charlie Mellor’s past as an opera singer. The restaurant itself is a full-throated, harmonious hymn to Italy’s various regions, which unites the peninsula like a sort of Soho Garibaldi. The menu has a little note by each item to let you know where it hails from: Breaded lamb chops from Lazio; white risotto from Lombardy — which, by the way, is one of the loveliest things I have eaten in a long, long time.

2. Burro, Covent Garden

Burro, as you know, means butter. And butter, in Italian cooking, means almost everything. Cooking with our host last week in a kitchen in the Maremma, I was shocked and delighted to watch her lever genuinely half a block of pale butter into our pan of risotto just before serving it. Bad for the heart, but good for the heart, if you see what I mean. Burro embodies that philosophy beautifully. The fettuccine with duck and porcini ragu is ridiculously good and completely life affirming, as is a fresh, garlicky tagliarini with chopped mussels, chilli, and Amalfi lemon. A great spot.

3. Bar Etna, Newington Green

London is in the throws of a pizza war, with rival factions fighting it out along partisan, increasingly local lines: Detroit style, New York style, Chicago style; Neapolitan, Roman, Tuscan; even London has its own varietal now, spurred on chiefly by the good work of Crisp. But Newington Green’s Bar Etna is a style entirely unto itself — a sort of East London-Philadelphia cross (with a touch of the fashionable ‘New Haven’ variant to it) which creates pies that are sometimes familiar but often surprising: like a spicy spinach curry pizza and one topped with coolea, a West Irish cheese. Created by Ed McIlroy (who also owns The Plimsoll and Tollington’s) and Philadelphian pizza chef Joe Beddia, it is very good, pleasingly original, and just as much fun as its vast, stainless steel bar implies.

4. Tiella, Bethnal Green

The pub is our equivalent of the Italian trattoria, and Tiella manages to be both at once. Situated inside the lovely, 160-year-old bones of the old Globe boozer on the Columbia Road, it is a lovely mix of stripped-back wood and eclectic, antique fittings. Bustling and fun, it feels, like all great Italian restaurants, as though it has been there forever. And the meatballs are truly excellent.

5. Martino’s, Sloane Square

Martino’s is named for its founder, the now-unstoppable Martin Kuczmarksi, who was raised in Tuscany but got his real education in London, working his way up through every rank in the restaurant world to become COO of Soho House at its peak. It is a neat embodiment of him, too — a sense of mischief with precision; of both familiarity and escapism. The small details, achingly considered but often invisible, add up to something much more than the sum of its parts. The burl wood walls are beautiful. The lager alla spina comes exquisitely chilled. The acoustics are miraculous — a warm wash of bright chatter that somehow never overwhelms your conversation. The shakerato cocktail is an instant classic. And the food is truly lovely, and made and served with love. (I like to take the fettuccine alfredo followed by the on-the-bone veal Milanese.) It is, in all honesty, a near perfect place.

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