Il Bacio - Sardininan Pizza and Pasta

Il Bacio Express offers pizza, a few pasta dishes and aubergine parmigiano served on plain wooden tables with clay carafes of table wine. It is a bustling little place bursting with Sardinian welcome and warmth, even the MTV above the serving hatch just adds to its holiday appeal.

The Express has a sister restaurant down the road that also does pizzas but with a more extensive and sophisticated pasta and wine menus. It is more expensive (about £25 a head, the Express is nearer to £15) and though I have had great meals in there, I have also had terrible ones. Certainly Saturday night is one to avoid it gets too busy in there.

Il Bacio Express, though, is always a delight. The pizzas are out of this world, thin, bubbly bases covered in the best of ingredients - zesty tomato sauce, freshest buffalo mozarella and wonderful Sardinian charcuteries, mmmm. The Melanzane Parmigiano is a dish I’d walk 500 miles for. 

Go hungry and order a carafe of wine and a green salad (lettuce, avocado, olive, green pepper) to share, immerse yourself in the bustle. With a piece of woodfired pizza in your mouth and a clay golbet of wine in your hand you could imagine yourself for a moment on the costa esmeralda...

5/5 - September 2008

Starters £5-6 (but I’ve never had one for fear of running out of room)
Main £7.50-9
House wine £7.50 (1/2L carafe)

IL BACIO EXPRESS
90 Church Street
Stoke Newington N16
London
020 7249 2344
www.ilbacioexpress.com/

3.5/5

Starters £7
Main £9-14
House wine £19

Il Bacio
61 Stoke Newington N16
www.ilbaciohighbury.co.uk/firststoke.htm