Il Convivio

Have visited twice now at lunch times and found polite, efficient service, delicious modern but unfussy Italian food and a good value wine list in a bright, modern environment with plenty of room between tables. Highly recommended – one of my favourite restaurants, and in my view and experience, the nicest, best quality lunch destination near Victoria station.

Belgravia is spoilt for choice when it comes to Italian restaurants, but il Convivio is the one I find myself returning to most often. The room is a well designed space, with the rear half of the restaurant sitting under skylights and the front being a clean, modern front half that is refreshingly well lit.

The menu doesn’t change too often, but there is plenty on there worth trying. Starters are mostly safe choices like mozzarella and tomato or carpaccio of beef or tuna. The home made pasta is better, the black spaghetti and lobster being excellent and the tagliatelle with hare ragu is also enjoyable. I agree with a previous reviewer though who said the food isn’t hot enough. It isn’t. Main course of beef fillet with cep mushrooms and red wine sauce was well cooked although the fat cut chips it came with weren’t great. Osso buco was well seasoned and a hearty dish.

I’m not really a dessert fan, but the white espresso ice cream is very good. The wine list is a strong point and, shockingly, there is even some value for money to be found in there (along with a few high priced shockers).

I have been a few times recently and some visits have been distinctly better than others, but on a good day it is well worth a visit.

I must admit that I have a bit of a negative bias to Italian restaurants after a few too many of them trying so hard and charging even harder. After all, the Italian cuisine is rarely overly complicated, right?!

Anyway, I had a pleasant experience at Il Convivio. I would have preferred to sit further in the restaurant, under the skylights, but it wasn't bad in the section before. The food was well presented and definitely delivered. I had a carpaccio for starter and a crab linguine as main. Apart from the pasta being a bit less warm than I would expect, it was very tasteful. I do react to paying almost 20 pounds for a dish that I probably could do quite well myself (wouldn't bet on it, but still). Finally, the service left nothing to complain about, very discreet and the sommelier was very quick to react to the unfortunate corked bottle of wine we nearly were served.

All in all, nice place, but I think I prefer other Italians to this one.