Osteria Antica Bologna looks and feels like an authentic tavern from Northern Italy ie a bit stuck in the 70s. The chairs all match (worth a comment in today's “quirky decor” obsessed London), the wood panelled walls are now vintage-ly back in fashion, the menu still contains nonna's favourites. It doesn't particularly excite you when you walk in. Italian used to be exotic, a real end of week treat which young couples country-wide looked forward to with its promise of unusually shaped pasta and a shared bottle of chianti. Now it's the workday workhorse of local cuisine and pizza/pasta is for when we can't be bothered to do real cooking. But we shouldn't take Italian cuisine for granted: whilst the atmosphere in this restaurant is predictable, so is the quality of the food, which can only be a good thing. I admit I was a bit disappointed with my starter of fried zuchinni and prawns which were rather shriveled up and I had food envy for the more pedestrian sounding bruschetta which my friends ordered as these looked amazing with towers of fresh tomatoes spilling off the bread. But my main of homemade pasta with wild boar ragu, a dish which in the hands of so many turns into mushy spag bol affair, was beautiful. Tasty, meaty, boar-ish and more-ish. The carafe of house red complemented the flavours well even if it didn't blow me away. Service was competent and the bill reasonable. If I have given Antica Bologna a low-ish rating that isn't because it wasn't good; it's just because you've probably already been somewhere exactly like this a hundred times before and won't be coming in here unless it's your own local gem. It's a relief to have places like this which have resisted the relentless onslaught of modernisation and prove the saying “If it ain't broke, don't fix it” but thank goodness for more daring “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” gastronomic experiments.