My favourite London restaurant

I’m a stick in the mud when it comes to restaurants in London. I go to the ones I know and like, and of these, Giovanni’s, a small Sicilian eatery in an alley off St Martin’s Lane is my favourite. The food is magnificent, the wine a delight (especially the Tancredi, grown and bottled in the estates of the Lampedusa family whose most famous son wrote the masterpiece, The Leopard) and Giovanni’s owner, Pino Ragona, is the most charming host in London. Of old Sicilian nobility himself – he tells wonderful stories of his ancestry – he runs the restaurant in a style that combines intimacy, old world courtliness and humour, and he has effortlessly created over the years one of the most exciting eating places in the city. No coincidence that it was at one of his tables that the idea of joining the Three Tenors had its birth. For those who love Italy, and particularly Sicily, and those who just want an evening of excellent food and companionship, Giovanni’s is the place I would recommend every time.