Assaggi

A neighbourhood place serving food that can stand up to any Italian restaurant in London, Assaggi is a small, simply decorated dining room above a pub. Front-of-house staff usually deliver warm, funny, genuinely friendly service, while the food displays technical skill that is sometimes astonishing, but always focuses on making each ingredient shine.

That skill is especially apparent in deep-frying: of big, juicy prawns and a risotto cake in one starter, of stuffed courgette flowers and tiny courgettes in another. The stuffing for the flowers was a runny egg yolk that flowed enticingly when the flower was cut. Another starter comprised creamy burrata cheese wrapped in a strip of grilled aubergine and served on a bed of improbably flavourful salad leaves. Own-made pappardelle had a generous sauce of deeply seasoned crabmeat, including a whole claw. The menu is short, but offers something for everyone.

The wine list, also mercifully brief, begins under £25 and delivers high quality at every level. Assaggi's neighbourhood is affluent Bayswater/Notting Hill, so prices are not exactly low, but you can have two courses and a bottle of wine for under £100, which is eminently reasonable for the area. A place to cherish.