An attractive spot on Stoke Newington Church Street gives Il Bacio an instant advantage, and very reasonable pricing also helps secure it as a firm local favourite. The menu has a Sardinian bias, with plenty of seafood and regional specialities among the usual trattoria classics. Sardinian flatbread adorns the bread basket, and the distinctive Sardinian semolina and saffron alternative to potato-flour gnocchi also crops up.
Calamari piccante came with a sauce not so piccante as to overshadow the squid, and the dough for our campagnola pizza was robust and well seasoned; the topping (olives, rosemary and Sardinian salami) was perhaps a little miserly, but tasty all the same. Another attraction is the house wine: very drinkable and a steal at £15 for a litre. However, wine tumblers are no more than terracotta thimbles, so it’s easy to lose track of the tally and end up a little merrier than anticipated.