Osteria Basilico
29 Kensington Park Road, London W11 (020 7727 9372)

This laid-back, local Italian restaurant has become a hot favourite of the trustafarians of Notting Hill in west London - who love to discuss house prices, film deals and the problems of finding a good nanny over a glass of wine and a plate of penne al pomodoro. There is a good selection of Italian food, but the simple pasta dishes are the most popular. Great rocket salads, bread and olive oil. Booking is essential - it is packed even on Monday nights by 7pm. Around £20-£25 per head for a light supper.

Spaghetti House
169 Fortess Road, London NW5 (020 7485 7984)

Vincenzo Scocchia ('Everyone calls me Vincent') came to London in the 1960s to try 'la dolce vita in Soho' and never went home. He opened the Spaghetti House on a grimy corner opposite Tufnell Park Tube in 1976 and still runs it as an all-day caff and BYO. Perceived by those hurrying by as a greasy spoon, the restaurant serves workers plates of spaghetti marinara for £5.50 next to toffs eating lobster for £9.

Vincent makes everything himself: nothing is frozen, no sauce comes from a jar. He specialises in grilling fresh fish, serving tuna with agrodolce (sweet and sour) and swordfish with Provençal sauce. Bruschetta is the classic version with fresh tomatoes, basil, parsley and olive oil. Dolci are homespun: cherry pie, apple pie, crème caramel. Regulars travel for miles to eat here, hugging themselves over the low prices.

Caffe Caldesi
118 Marylebone Lane, London W1 (020 7935 1144)

The reason this cafe-cum-restaurant is a well-kept secret is its location. Seasoned shoppers use it as a place to relax after a hard's day browsing. Only a short walk from busy Oxford Street, it's tucked away in sleepy Marylebone Lane - perfect for breakfast, a quick pasta lunch, a glass of wine in the afternoon or a light supper. Good regional food with an excellent salad 'bar'. The Italian owner appears to employ only the happiest and friendliest staff - the place is very child-friendly. It gets packed at weekends, but it is relatively easy to get a table during the week. From £15-£25 a head for lunch.

Arancia
52 Southwark Park Road, London SE16 (020 7394 1751)

Outsiders may regard the neighbourhood as 'dodgy', but that doesn't stop lovers of Italian food beating a path to Arancia, where Cathy O'Sullivan turns out a brief but impressive menu of five starters and five mains every week for about £23 per head. From the signature dish of arancini - fried risotto croquettes with mozzarella - through scallops and squid served in a butter sauce with a subtle hint of pastis, her dishes tend to be simple yet imaginative. The restaurant's décor could best be described as 'front-room charming', but everyone raves about the huge goblets of delicious yet inexpensive wine, the fab food and the laid-back atmosphere.

Flying Pizza
60a Street Lane, Leeds (0113 266 6501)

Half a mile from Roundhay Park is this popular pizzeria, where people-spotting takes precedence over gastronomic considerations. Sportspeople, ladies with a great deal of jewellery and would-be celebs make up half the clientele - they may arrive by limo, but they have to queue along with everyone else. There's plenty to entertain them: shouting waiters, pizza-spinning chefs and scantily clad diners, whose fake tans and navel studs make it hard not to stare. Pasta and pizza are the biggest-selling items at around £7 a plate, but there are scores of antipasti - many with Marie Rose sauce. Mains include old-fashioned delights such as pollo modenese, chicken breast in breadcrumbs, topped with ham, fontina and white-wine sauce.

Cibo
83 Pontcanna Street, Cardiff (029 2023 2226)

For once, a restaurant sticks to what it does best. Cibo, hailed by locals as 'Little Italy in Pontcanna', is a cafe/bar serving cooked breakfasts with Italian sausages, pizza, pasta, panini and salads. Its diminutive scale is endearing - cosy in winter, but with the chance to sit in a little garden at the back or at the front in summer, watching passers-by. Staff at BBC Wales, around the corner, use Cibo as their canteen. They marvel at the 'perfect' pizza marinara, the pasta sauces in every version from arabbiata to puttanesca, the homemade lasagne and the cannelloni stuffed with spinach and ricotta. Puds tend to include tiramisu and lemon cheesecake. It's rare to spend more than £15 on a blow-out dinner; calzone and cappuccino is a more likely snack. 'You can never get a table,' says one regular. 'But when you do, it's wonderful.'

Palmiro
197 Upper Chorlton Road, Manchester (0161 860 7330)

It has been four years since Stefan Bagnoli converted a former car-accessories shop into a stylish showcase for his southern Italian cooking. There're original 1950s chairs, stucco walls with natural pigments and a herb garden with outdoor seating. Real trattoria dishes are promised and delivered. Luckily, Bagnoli's father sends food parcels from Venice, and the rest is down to the chef's hard work. On the menu is potato raviolo filled with organic juniper and smoked ricotta from the Abruzzo national park. The fantastic all-Italian wine list is being further expanded with the help of a master of wine, to represent every region and grape variety. Dinner with wine is about £25-£30 per head.

Zeffirelli's
Compston Road, Ambleside (015394 33845)

Lakeland holidaymakers can hardly believe their luck when they stumble across this magical combo of cinema and veggie pizzeria. Fantastic value is provided in movie and meal deals (two-course dinner and film £14.95), but a visit to the restaurant alone is also highly recommended. Vegetable antipasti are followed by pizzas made from wheatmeal and rolled in sesame seeds, from £7. Pastas include ravioli porcini and penne with basil and pine-nut pesto. And the surroundings are by no means basic: Zeffirelli's has an Art Deco interior most movie houses would die for.

Ristorante Tinelli
139 Easter Road, Edinburgh (0131 652 1932)

You won't find pizza, chips or garlic bread at Tinelli's, because those are 'for people who don't like to cook Italian', according to Giancarlo Tinelli. Snr Tinelli likes to cook Italian, just as he has done at this excellent eatery for 23 years. The wooden tables, prints of Italy and net curtains may not be everyone's cup of prosecco, but the cognoscenti forgive this for the fantastic food and reasonable prices. Veal cutlet with Marsala and wild mushrooms, grilled halibut with lemon butter and parsley, and calves' liver pan-fried with balsamic vinegar are some of the classics on the menu. Filled pasta is made fresh daily. The most expensive wine is £28, and many eat for less than £15.

Caffe la Fiamma
Hampton Court Road, Hampton Court (020 8943 2050)

This family restaurant, close to the palace gates, has great views over Bushey Park, with its free-roaming deer, and serves modern Italian cuisine. Children have their own menu (£4.85) of pizza, pasta or (homemade) chicken 'nuggets'. Friendly and relaxing, it is a lovely spot to have lunch after a tour of the palace.

Fratelli Sarti
121 Bath Street, Glasgow (0141 204 0440)

There are now four restaurants in Glasgow in the stable of the Sarti brothers, Sandro and Piero. Each has its loyal following, but the name Sarti is synonymous with classic Ligurian and Tuscan food, done well and not too expensively. The Wellington Street branch is packed every day for breakfast from 7.45am (they get through 'gallons of Nutella'); when the Bath Street restaurant opened at the same time to take the overspill, it remained empty and the queues for a table in Wellington Street just grew longer. It is not unusual for guests to get drunk on house wine while queuing for a table at dinnertime in either location at the weekends.

The 'rustic' look of these restaurants suits many Glaswegians, who shun the Renfield Street branch, with its marble tables and chandeliers, as 'too posh', despite the same menu being served. At any of the Sartis, pizza and pasta are the thing: seafood spaghetti scogliera is a highlight; any pizza topping is good, but exotics are a no-no: 'Pineapple is a pudding. It does not go on pizza.' The freshly made minestrone is a meal in itself. Eat two courses for as little as £10, or drink lots and spend £25.

Ramsons
18 Market Place, Ramsbottom, Lancashire (01706 825070)

So unlikely it has to be true, the existence of a brilliant Italian restaurant in a little west Pennine town is one thing; its cooking by an English Italophile another. Chris Johnson's love affair with Italy has resulted in this destination eatery, which produces authentic dishes with the best ingredients available, be they wild nettles and garlic, beef, pigeons or fish.

There is only one rule of the house: guests are encouraged to eat vegetables as a separate course for ease of digestion. You might like to try this with, say borlotti and piattone beans in arabbiata sauce with Parmesan, or globe artichokes with melting robbiola cheese. Then there are sardines with camone tomato chutney, sea bass carpaccio with lemon and olive oil and polenta ravioli with spinach and ricotta. Eating from la carta can be pricey; the best deal is the lunch/early dinner three-course set menu at £18.