For more than two decades, staff at this corner trattoria have greeted diners as guests and farewelled them as friends. This is hospitality with a capital H, from the lemon slices dropped gently into gleaming water glasses to the last lick of impossibly light tiramisu.

Sauces star across the prix-fixe menu, which is available as two or three courses. Fried zucchini flowers stuffed with ginger and prawn mousse benefit from a slick of caviar-specked bisque. Miso finds its way into a gentleman’s relish that takes pork neck from great to magnificent, while sweet hunks of crab flesh mingle with a generous hail of pangrattato in an exemplary spaghettini.

The linen is crisp, the jazz gentle and the service meticulous. If the sweeping wine list isn’t quite enough, pop over the road to sister venue Bar Alba for yet more Italian-centric pours.

Must-order dish: Zucchini blossoms, prawn, seaweed beurre blanc.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.