La Famiglia Bar & Restaurant

The name says it all: La Famiglia Bar & Restaurant is a family-run outfit serving fresh, traditional Italian cuisine rethought, using the finest ingredients – including some you may not yet know – and promising to “create unique dishes that would make mamma proud”.

Producing homemade pasta, pastry and cake daily, the team constantly review the menu, trying out new dishes to give you the opportunity to taste all the flavours of Italy’s mainland and islands. Head to the city-centre eatery after work or shopping for aperitivos and stuzzicchini – their sharing platters of imported meats, cheeses and nibbles are perfect with the freshly baked breads and bruschetta. Authentic produce includes fresh burrata, bufala mozzarella and soft truffle pecorino cheeses, Sardinian sausages, Parma ham and pistachio mortadella meats. Authentic recipes include Sicilian caponata aubergine and tomato salad, cacciatore hunter-style lamb cutlets, risotto with prawns, ham and melon, and polpette al sugo meatballs with crispy lasagne sheets. Sardinian fregula sarda is a kind of couscous served with seafood; equally handmade are the gnocchi, fettucine, parpadelle and paccheri – and different ravioli, including one vegetarian option with a fig and goat’s cheese filling and a sprinkling of pine nuts. Pizza isn’t a thing at La Famiglia, but pinsa most certainly is: hailing from Rome, this super-stretched oblong offering is a combination of its Neapolitan cousin and fluffy focaccia bread.

There’s cheesecake and gelato for pud – combine with Amaretto for an affogato or leave that as a digestif and give the more unusual Sardinian seadas a try: a soured cheese fritter drizzled in warm honey. All the wines are Italian and there’s Prosecco a-go-go, Sicilian lemon gin, bottles of Ignusa lager from Sardinia and Angelo Poretti on draught.

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