Like Scotti’s Snack Bar, St Peter’s Church, and the 67-year-old multilingual driving school up the road, L Terroni & Sons is a beautiful remnant of Clerkenwell’s old Little Italy. It’s a surprisingly historical spot, which claims to be London’s oldest delicatessen.

But Terroni’s is hardly gathering dust. The place draws a steady crowd, who step over the prehistoric doorway mosaic to enjoy gigantic, inexpensive pizzas and pastas, all doused in a tomato sauce more lurid than a setting sun. Try the delightfully round raviolis, the squidgy gnocchi, or maybe a colossal, puffed-up calzone, then grab some cannoli and something suitably pungent from the deli counter to take home. 

Everybody loves Italia Uno, including the office types who clog its entrance on weekdays, the football fans who come to watch Serie A matches on one of its six TVs, and the delivery riders who drink espressos while their e-bike batteries charge in the corner. The food unites these people, as does the place’s homely atmosphere, which are both down to Felice, Italia Uno’s tireless, good-natured proprietor.

Felice has been assembling finely tuned sandwiches here for over two decades. His finest work includes the bondola, which balances the silky richness of mortadella with the sharpness of marinated artichoke hearts, and the picante, a surprisingly spicy sausage and pecorino number. There’s other great stuff too, like the wholesome rigatoni with meat sauce, which feels more ragu alla bolognese than spag bol.

Fixed seating keeps things neat and tidy. It creates more space, makes floors easier to clean, and keeps the dining room in configuration. If Trevi Ristorante’s angular burgundy booths were installed when the place opened, then they’ve been exemplifying these benefits for 60 years.

Those magical seats are an excellent place to enjoy hearty servings of Italian food. There’s a whole host of old-school dishes on offer here, from the breaded veal to the grilled lamb liver, but the obvious choice is the bolognese, which is meaty, peppery, and as deeply savoury as a pint of soy sauce.

It may be difficult to imagine, but Capitan Corelli opened back in 1977, when the U.K. was fraught with strikes, inflation and an economic crisis. The restaurant hasn’t changed much since those days (at the time of writing, neither has the U.K.) and it wears its tumbledown charm well, dancing the line between caff and affordable restaurant.

Most locals pop in for something from behind the counter, as part of the place’s competitively priced lunchtime buffet, in the same way people do at Lewisham’s Everest Curry King and Whitechapel’s Shalamar Kebab House. The food is straightforward, homely stuff, that will leave customers neither hungry nor shortchanged. So try a chicken leg, a cuboid of lasagne, some spaghetti and meatballs, or maybe all three together.

Anacapri feels less Baker Street and more Brooklyn, all tablecloths, varnished wood, and Chianti bottles in straw baskets. The place’s slender, welcoming dining room attracts a convivial, vaguely wealthy-looking crowd, including men with grey, slicked-back hair who wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Overall, it’s an extremely atmospheric place to eat.

Everyone’s here for the classics, like the veal Milanese, an elephant’s ear of an escalope that comes alive with a squeeze of lemon, and goes delightfully with mouthfuls of soft, tomatoey spaghetti. The A4 paper-sized ravioli are similarly dramatic, as are the slabs of tiramisu, which the place’s good-humoured waiters tote above their shoulders in huge trays to tempt diners after their mains.