San Daniele Del Friuli

Named after the famous northern Italy ham, and actually served in the fabulous pizza San Daniele, with rocket salad and parmesan shavings (best choice), this restaurant has a charming atmosphere, placed up on the hill, not too far from the Highbury, former Arsenal stadium. A few years ago you could easily spot Arsene Wenger, Henry, Pires and other Gunners on the premises…

Service très cordial, nourriture de bonne qualité et grandes quantités. J’ai été surprise de manger aussi correctement italien a Londres.

I am surprised about the bad review «ecc» gave this restaurant. I actually consider this to be one of the best Italian’s in London. I have been here the first time in 1997 and it always felt like a real treat. It is a little more expensive than some of the other restaurants down Blackstock Road. The menu doesn’t change that much but they typically have some great game-​based dishes and other truely authentic cuisine from the Italian region of Friuli.

We may have caught this restaurant on a bad night, but our experience of it was truly disastrous. Terrible pasta in every respect; neither of us ate more than half of our mains, and the bill came to £40 — awful value for such poor food, especially given that there are plenty of other, extraordinarily good meals to be had in the area for less (notably at Au Lac, a few doors down the road). Things went downhill when the waiter overcharged my debit card by £180, failed to apologise, could not work out how to refund my card and so had to repay me the difference in cash, and stormed off when we refused to pay the ‘optional’ service charge. Overhearing the instruction to ‘get them out of here’ did little to help. This situation could have been easily resolved, but the staff were frankly rude and confrontational. We won’t be returning.