Totò

The colour scheme may be set squarely on 'monochrome', yet Totò is anything but drab. Replacing the popular Chez Sophie, which was run by the same family, the restaurant has toned down the frills and reinvented itself as a trendy Italian eaterie in the mould of a neighbourhood trattoria.

The place has one foot in the old country (c.f. the portraits of Italian cinema stars staring down at you from the walls) and the other in the kind of hard-to-place fusion aesthetic so beloved of the Beirut dining scene. A large pizza oven behind the bar heralds the restaurant's speciality: Totò's pizze are uniformly delicious, and the Metro – any pizza served in a metre-long roll – is something to behold, though a range of salads and antipasti are available for the gluten-intolerant. Angle for an outside table when the weather is nice.