Signor Vertelli

We’ll cut to the chase: a one-hour time limit on early dinner bookings is far from the platonic ideal of hospitality. It’s an inviting menu! What do you mean we don’t have enough time to order cannellini beans shot through with melting taleggio, a margherita and the tiramisu?

Later sittings, with a more generous two-hour limit, are the smart tip at this minimalist gunbarrel dining room, where a woodfired oven chars bread to swipe through those soul-warming beans, and blisters a variety of pretty great pizzas. (Our pick of the toppings is the lush guanciale number, with crisped up cavolo nero leaves and smoked scamorza.)

The other tip is to go hard, if time permits, on the specials board, which could list house-cured sardines on a sweet-sour escabeche, or fall-apart ossobuco ladled over what might be the biggest serve of polenta the Good Food Guide has ever seen.

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