Italian in London is two different cuisines wearing the same word, and almost every list mixes them together. That is why people end up queueing forty minutes for a ten pound bowl of pasta when they wanted a proper dinner, or booking a hundred pound table when they wanted a plate of tagliarini.
One is the pasta counter. The other is the restaurant. Decide which evening you are having before you read any further.
The pasta counters
Small menu, short wait for a table, cooked in front of you, and cheap enough that lunch is a genuine option rather than an occasion.
Padella
- Address
- 6 Southwark Street, SE1 1TQ. Also Shoreditch and 2 Kingly Street, Soho
- Nearest
- London Bridge for Borough Market
- Price
- Pasta from £9.50 to £16.50
- Standing
- Three London sites, built around a short hand rolled pasta menu
How to get in
The cheapest serious plate of pasta in central London: tagliarini with chilli, garlic and pangrattato at £9.50, up to pappardelle with beef shin ragu or tagliarini with Dorset crab at £16.50. The three sites no longer work the same way. Shoreditch and Soho take bookings up to four weeks ahead. Borough Market takes none at all: you join a virtual queue at the door or on the Dojo app, from 11am for lunch and half past four for dinner.
The arithmetic is the point. Two courses and a glass here costs less than a main course alone in most of the rooms below, and the pasta itself is not a lesser version of it. Groups of seven or more get a three course set menu instead, up to 22 at Shoreditch and 29 at Soho.
The neighbourhood rooms
This is where the actual cooking is, and it is mostly not in the middle of town.
Trullo
- Address
- 300 to 302 St Paul's Road, N1 2LH
- Nearest
- Highbury and Islington
- Hours
- Lunch daily 12.30pm to 3pm. Dinner Monday to Thursday 6pm to 10.30pm, Friday and Saturday 5.30pm to 10.30pm, Sunday 5.30pm to 9.30pm
- Booking
- 020 7226 2733
- Standing
- Seasonal Italian cooking built on hand made pasta and a charcoal grill
How to get in
Takes bookings, which immediately separates it from the counters. The charcoal grill is the half people forget: this is a pasta restaurant and a grill restaurant at once, and ordering only pasta here misses the point. Lunch runs daily and is the easiest table to get.
Bocca di Lupo
- Address
- 12 Archer Street, Soho, W1D 7BB
- Nearest
- Piccadilly Circus
- Hours
- Monday to Saturday lunch midday to 3pm and dinner 5pm to 11pm, with the bar to midnight. Sunday lunch midday to 3.30pm and dinner 5pm to 9.30pm
- Booking
- Online, or 020 7734 2223 between 10am and 6pm. Walk ins taken when there is room
- Standing
- Regional Italian cooking from all twenty regions, with dishes served in small and large portions
How to get in
Book it. This is the one Soho address on the page and the exception to the rule that the good Italian food has left the centre. The small plate format means a table of two can eat across four regions in one sitting, which is the whole argument for the place.
The one everybody names
The River Café
- Address
- Thames Wharf, Rainville Road, W6 9HA
- Nearest
- Hammersmith
- Hours
- Lunch 12pm to 3pm daily. Dinner 6pm to 9.30pm Monday to Saturday, with all evening diners out by 11.30pm
- Standing
- In their own words, an iconic Italian restaurant in London since 1987. Designed by Richard Rogers, with a riverside garden terrace and an open kitchen
How to get in
Book online and as far ahead as you can. Their own instruction is plain: book online for up to eight people, and they do not take bookings by email. The menu changes daily. It is in Hammersmith rather than central London, which is part of why it has stayed what it is.
The hard stop at 11.30pm is worth planning around. This is not a restaurant that drifts into a long evening, so put the drink somewhere else and afterwards.
The big rooms, and the booking myth
There is a third category this page used to leave out, and Google now puts it first: the Big Mamma group. Circolo Popolare in Fitzrovia, Ave Mario in Covent Garden, Carlotta in Marylebone, Gloria in Shoreditch, Jacuzzi in Kensington and Barbarella in Canary Wharf are all the same operator, with a seventh, Edmondo, counting down to opening on Lombard Street in the City. They all book through one system, and between them they are the most visible Italian restaurants in London.
The myth is that you cannot book them. You can. Gloria’s own page says it plainly: reservations are taken for both lunch and dinner, and some tables are held back for walk ins. The catch is the release: bookings open thirty days ahead at 9am, or thirty seven days ahead for groups of eight or more, and if a slot is not showing it is gone rather than withheld. The queue outside is the people who did not book, not the house policy.
Gloria
- Address
- 54 to 56 Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3QR
- Nearest
- Old Street or Shoreditch High Street
- Hours
- Monday to Wednesday 12:00 to 15:30 and 17:15 to 22:30. Thursday to Saturday 12:00 to 16:15 and 17:15 to 23:00. Sunday 12:00 to 16:15 and 17:15 to 22:30
- Booking
- Website only, opening 30 days ahead at 9am, with some tables held for walk ins of up to 7. Groups of 8 to 20 book a set Group Menu from £54 per person, released 37 days ahead
- Price
- Lunch set menu Monday to Friday 12:00 to 14:45, from £17. Two courses £23
How to get in
The room everybody photographs, and the one where the arithmetic is most lopsided: a £17 weekday lunch in a restaurant people queue an hour for at night.
The lunch is the whole point. A set menu from £17 Monday to Friday, or two courses at £23, in a room that at eight in the evening has a line down Great Eastern Street. Same kitchen, same dining room, a third of the price and no wait.
Watch the afternoon gap. Lunch stops at half past three from Monday to Wednesday and quarter past four from Thursday to Sunday, and dinner does not start until 17:15. Turning up at half past four on a Tuesday gets you nothing.
If a big group is the reason you are looking, the Group Menu covers 8 to 20 guests from £54 a head, which is a straightforward answer to a problem most London restaurants make difficult. Private dining rooms in London covers the alternative when the party is larger than twenty.
What most lists get wrong
The best Italian food in London is not in the tourist part of Soho. It is in Highbury, in Hammersmith, and behind a counter in Borough Market. Bocca di Lupo is the exception rather than the rule, and the strip of red sauce restaurants around Leicester Square is not competing with any of them.
Regional means something. Italy does not have one cuisine and the rooms worth the trip cook from somewhere specific rather than from a general idea of Italy. A menu that offers carbonara, pizza and risotto in equal measure is cooking from the general idea.
Pasta is a course, not the meal. In an Italian restaurant proper it sits between the antipasti and the grill. The counters invert that deliberately and well, but do not order three pasta dishes at Trullo and conclude the grill was not worth it.
How to book it
Lunch, as everywhere in this guide. Trullo serves lunch daily and it is the easiest table in this list. The River Café serves lunch seven days a week when its dinner service is closed on Sunday.
Book the restaurants, and now two of the three counters as well. Trullo, Bocca di Lupo and the River Café all take reservations and all reward booking early, and Padella Shoreditch and Soho now take them four weeks out. Only Padella Borough Market still runs on the queue, which makes it the one bad plan for a fixed time with four people.
Go out of the centre. Highbury and Hammersmith are both a straightforward journey and both are why the food is better than the equivalent in W1.
Everything here was taken from each restaurant’s own published information and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Prices and hours change. Confirm before booking.
The best Italian restaurants near me in London
Five of the rooms on this page are spread across the map, so the nearest is rarely a hard choice. Padella is by London Bridge and Borough Market, Trullo by Highbury and Islington, Bocca di Lupo by Piccadilly Circus, The River Café at Hammersmith, and Gloria in Shoreditch by Old Street or Shoreditch High Street. Pick the station you are nearest to and read that entry first.
Where to go next
The pizza guide is the separate page, because London pizza is four scenes that barely compete: Neapolitan, sourdough, twenty inch and delivery first. It includes the 12.50 pound weekday lunch that is the best value in this guide.
The best Chinese restaurants makes the same argument about Chinatown that this page makes about Soho, and the starred Indian restaurants are the third of the set.
The best restaurants in London covers the wider field, and the set menus cover where to eat well for less.
Questions we get asked
What is the best Italian restaurant in London?
It depends which of two things you want, because Italian in London splits in half. For a proper dinner, the River Café in Hammersmith is the name everyone reaches for and has been since 1987, with Trullo in Highbury the better value version of the same idea. For a plate of pasta rather than an occasion, Padella does hand rolled pasta from £9.50 to £16.50 across three sites. Bocca di Lupo at 12 Archer Street is the one genuinely good central option.
Where is the best pasta in London?
Padella for the cheap end, where hand rolled pasta runs from £9.50 for tagliarini with chilli, garlic and pangrattato to £16.50 for pappardelle with beef shin ragu, across Borough Market, Shoreditch and Soho, the last two of which now take bookings. Trullo in Highbury for pasta as part of a proper dinner, alongside a charcoal grill that most people ordering there forget about.
Is the River Café worth it?
For the room and the occasion, yes. It has been running since 1987, it was designed by Richard Rogers, it has a riverside garden terrace and an open kitchen, and the menu changes daily. Two things to plan around: it is in Hammersmith rather than central London, and all evening diners are out by 11.30pm, so it does not turn into a long night.
How do you book the River Café?
Online, and as far ahead as you can manage. Their own instruction is to book online for up to eight people and that they do not take bookings by email. Lunch runs 12pm to 3pm every day and dinner 6pm to 9.30pm Monday to Saturday, so a weekday lunch is considerably easier to get than a Saturday dinner.
Do you need to book Italian restaurants in London?
For the restaurants yes, and now for most of the counters too. Trullo takes bookings on 020 7226 2733, Bocca di Lupo online or on 020 7734 2223, and the River Café wants as much notice as you can give. Padella has changed: Shoreditch and Soho take reservations up to four weeks ahead, while Borough Market still runs a virtual queue on the Dojo app and is the poor choice when you need a table at a fixed time for a group.
Where is the best Italian food in London?
Mostly not in the centre. Highbury has Trullo, Hammersmith has the River Café, and Borough Market has Padella's original counter. Bocca di Lupo on Archer Street is the exception that proves it. The strip of Italian restaurants around Leicester Square is not competing with any of them and is priced as though it is.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 76 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
