Santini

We were not impressed with this place at all. The service was extremely slow. It took a little over an hour and 45 mins for our food to come out and it was mediocre at best. My dish was very bland and the pasta was undercooked. The staff wasn’t very attentive either. They saw us waiting forever for our food and didn’t offer anymore bread or anything. On top of that, the staff was openly arguing with each other on the floor. It was very odd. Needless to say, the next time we are in London we won’t be back. Save your money and time and go elsewhere as I’m sure there are much better Italian restaurants in the area.

Lorsqu’on va voir une comédie musicale à Londres, il faut s’organiser pour manger tôt ou accepter de manger très tard.
Santini a l’avantage d’être proche de certains grands théâtres et propose d’ailleurs un menu E/​P/​D pré-​théâtre (de 18h à 19h) ou post-​théâtre (22h à 23h) à £25
Santini nous reçoit dans un cadre très luxueux avec une terrasse magnifique, absolument parfaite pour journées d’été. Malheureusement, à 18h, il n’y a quasiment personne en dehors d’amis de la famille et malgré cela, le service est faible car trop occupé à préparer le restaurant pour le rush qui suivra.
Les plats sont corrects sans être à la hauteur du cadre, c’est trop simple alors qu’on attendait un festival de saveurs.
En entrée, nous avons testé les fritures de calamars et de courgettes ainsi qu’une salade tricolore (tomates cerises, avocat, mozzarella.
En plat, nous avons testé le poulet à la moutarde et au vin blanc ainsi que le risotto
En dessert, nous avons testé le tiramisu
Allez-​y pour la terrasse et le cadre, pour le prix du diner assez serré pour Londres et pour la proximité des théâtres. N’y allez pas pour faire le meilleur repas de Londres, il y a beaucoup d’autres restaurants bien meilleurs.

Great food, simple menu, and the specials are always a good choice. Love it outside!

My husband and I accidentally stumbled upon Santini after a full day of sightseeing around London. We were staying at a hotel nearby and wanted a hearty meal. Santini did not disappoint. This restaurant served some of the best Italian I’ve ever had in my life. The service was fantastic. I highly recommend ordering the artichoke as an appetizer.

This is my first ever review on Unilocal.I had to document the poor service received here. I really wanted this to be a good meal. I love Italian food and was excited about coming here. This meal was not a pleasant experience. After reading glowing reviews about this place, I booked a reservation to find a three quarters empty restaurant on a Friday night (warning sign number one). As for the first course, I ordered an iceberg wedge salad and the dressing had a barely discernible bleu cheese dressing (warning sign number two). Our entrees arrived and my husband’s entrée was wrong and the waitress (who turns out to be the manager) disputed what was ordered (warning sign number three). She did offer to replace it with the correct order, but the time it would take to resolve the issue would have delayed our dinner, so he took the incorrectly prepared entrée and we finished the meal. My entrée was just okay, a simple cappellini with tomatoes. The check arrives with the added service charge AND a ‘cover’ charge – including the charge for the wrong entrée. When questioned about why she charged us for their mistake the waitress/manager’s response was «But he ate it!». I told her this was terrible service and asked that the service charge be removed. To her credit, she did also remove the entrée charge, but only after arguing about it, but the damage was already done. A regrettable experience from start to finish. We will never be back. Be forewarned. Diners beware.

I’m a fan of Italian food and i’m constantly hunting for good italian restaurants. I was really happy with Santini, the food was delicious and the service was outstanding, also the location is perfect: just a three minutes walk from victoria station that brings you in the quiet Ebury street. I will recommend this place to anyone looking for a classy italian place.

I didn’t have a great experience at Santini. For 70 quid on a solo meal, I expected smiling, attentive waiters and great food. What I received with my pasta, steak, and wine, was a slightly beleaguered wait staff and good food. My waiter was clearly going through the motions and rarely visited my table. My pasta and steak were prepared with the same level of quality and detail as any white tablecloth restaurant — enjoyable, but nothing stood out. If the meal ended up half the price, this would be a 4-​star place that could use a bit more service training. As it stands, it barely passed 3-​star for me.

Santini had been recommended by several co-​workers, so I was excited about dining there. The ambiance of the restaurant was lovely. The staff were incredibly attentive. My starter was a Caesar Salad that was perfect. The shaved Parmesan perfectly sat upon romaine lettuce that had been dressed in just enough salad dressing. In lieu of my order of spinach ravioli with cherry tomato sauce, the waiter recommended the porcini mushroom risotto. He had been recommending this dish to each table. Despite my reservations, I tried the despite. Unfortunately, the cream sauce was a bit off and ultimately ruined the meal. Thus, I ended the meal with a cup of petal herbal tea and went home with a tummy ache. Disappointing.

Unassuming from the outside (so much so that I’ve walked past Santini a number of times and never realised it was a restaurant), Santini’s interior is light, elegant and oozing in business-​lunch atmosphere. The lunchtime clientele are generally suited and the dining area hums with murmured conversation. The waiting staff are as smart as the tables and reel off an impressive menu of specials (today’s include veal meatballs with handmade fettuccine, chicken parmigiana and grilled calamari amongst others of equally Italian leanings).
The wine list covers a wide range of budgets (£400 for a bottle of wine, anyone?) and the menu (available on the restaurant’s website) offers a good selection of starters, salads, pastas, fish dishes and secondi. Make no mistake, this place is pricey a starter of grilled scallops comes in at £17 whilst you’ll pay over £20 for some of the pasta dishes and £33 for the fish-lover’s delight, a whole grilled Dover sole.
Lunch begins with a selection of bread (of varying quality) and small dishes of exceptionally tasty olive oil and disappointingly bitter balsamic vinegar. The starters arrive promptly and, once I get past the too-​thick batter, my deep-​fried courgette flowers stuffed with mozzarella and herbs are quite delicious. My Dover Sole (someone else is paying!) is spectacular; the fish is well-​cooked and there isn’t too much added which allows it to really be the star of the show flavour-​wise. The mashed potato that I order on the side is creamy and well-​seasoned, but lamentably contains almost as many lumps as when I make it at home!
There are six in my party and between us we cover a fair bit of the menu, but, quite surprisingly for this group, there are no exclamations of intense joy at any one dish which I really feel there should be at this price point. Don’t get me wrong, Santini’s food is good, it’s just not amazing and that’s a real shame.

The best Italian food I’ve had in England, no question. Just a block away from the hustle and bustle of Victoria station, this restaurant feels like Old London, and rightly so, as it’s been here for 25 years. The food is perfect, and inventive without being showy, retaining that delicious Italian simplicity people know and love. The service is impeccable– friendly, helpful, and efficient. We went here for a pre-​theatre dinner, and it was honestly perfect. Would definitely recommend this to friends who want a special Italian meal in London.

One of the top restaurants in London, based on my year here. Family-​owned and run, with great attention and pride paid to the food and service. Nice room. Relaxed about seating/​reservations provided you’re reasonably dressed (I note the review below — t-​shirts and jeans are definitely not appropriate for this place, although they should have sat that group outside on a lunch during the summer).
It would have a tough time competing with the top restaurants in Paris and New York — hence the ⁴⁄₅ — but it’s at the top of the stack in London and I’ve always left happy.

This is an exquisite Italian restaurant from start to finish. The wait staff are also wonderful and contribute significantly to our thorough enjoyment of this fine eating establishment. I encourage all to try the Branzino Santini. We’ve had the pleasure of enjoying many a lunch and dinner, professional and personal meal at Santini and it always delivers.
Go. Enjoy. Bravo.

One of the most fantastic restaurants I’ve ever been. Great food is not always about fancy stuff. This is a great Italian restaurant with a lot of style and character. One clear example is that they have an exotic fruit sorbet desert where the sorbet comes inside the skin of the fruits. Just incredible and tastes delicious!

So, I happen to be a Google employee. Today we had a fire alarm (turned out to be a false one), and had to rush out of the building, just to find ourselves on the pavement of lovely Belgravia in a gorgeous London noon. While we were waiting for the situation to be cleared we strolled around a bit, and we thought we could try out Santini’s, given our canteen is becoming somewhat boring, these last few months.
So we arrive at Santini’s, four Google engineers in our «official uniform»… erh… that is our t-​shirts and jeans. The restaurant is 95% empty, but the people at the entrance look at us with an expression ranging from an unconcealed bewilderment to a badly dissimulated contempt. In fact the few other customers are all in suits and costumes. A pretty unsympathetic waiter tells us that the terrace is all booked, and we’ll have to sit inside.
While my naïve and unsuspecting british friends cheerfully sit down and foretaste the meal, I can’t help but remarking how blatant was the lie that we were served. Not only the terrace has not less than 20 tables empty, but I sure can recognize non-​verbal messages exchanged between two italian waiters swiftly communicating to one another: «quick: we can’t have people in t-​shirts on the public view!». As it turns out, this is a pretty high-​brow venue.
So, I’ll make it brief: the restaurant is lovely (especially the large terrace, on a not very busy Belgravia road), with stucco walls and chairs with linings, low music, good light, zealous waiters (one almost jumped on me when I dared trying to pour myself some wine, saying «please», grabbing the bottle from my hands and pouring it by himself). Food is good to very good. We had a risotto + asparagus + taleggio + black truffle that was tasty, reasonably well «mantecato», fairly balanced in the tastes, but a little too fat. I then tried a special rabbit that was good but not unforgettable, and I watched my friends tasting spaghetti alla carbonara, chicken «alla diavola», and cotoletta alla milanese. At this point every italian would probably guess what I’m about to say: so a high-​brow restaurant is serving spaghetti alla carbonara, pollo alla diavola and cotoletta alla milanese? Now, they must have been absolutely fantastic, because no italian restaurant would serve such everyday dishes except if they know they are producing sheer perfection.
Well, the truth is that it wasn’t sheer perfection. The «cotoletta» was a little too dry (albeit good) — and no restaurant in the whole world, for classy and luxurious, should ask 26£ for a slice of breaded veal — the chicken a little too spicy (albeit good), the pasta was a little too thin and salty (albeit good). The wine, at 35 pounds per bottle, was a little unstructured (albeit good).
Ended up paying 60 pounds per person, for a 2 courses meal. Not worth it: for a little more I’d be treating myself at Gordon Ramsay’s Maze, a couple of bus stops away.

Santini has been a long-​standing favorite of mine for delicious Italian food. They are consistent, polite, and serve only high quality dishes. Also, during London’s seemingly few warm summer days & nights, Santini has a fantastic outdoor seating area.