Rubino Pizza

New ownership and smaller menu. They have competition since they are bookended by two other Italian restaurants. Great location but they are going to have to up it if they want me to come back.

Excellent service. Generous portions. And amazing food. That’s the recipe for a great restaurant.
Right across the road from Southfield’s tube station, Rubino is a small, cute, elegant Italian and pizza restaurant on one side and a casual, relaxed deli on the other. There’s a bit of outdoor seating and wasn’t very crowded when we got there at about 7ish on a Saturday night.
On this particular night, we had the pasta but I hear that their pizzas are good too. I had the tagliatelle with mushrooms and truffle oil and it was cooked perfectly. My dining companion had the spaghetti with shellfish and chilli tomato sauce and had nothing but good words to say about it. We also had the arancini balls (perfectly melted mozzarella in the middle!) and the homemade ice cream for desert. Delish!

Come closer: listen carefully, I don’t want to shout about this delectable Italian secret I discovered — with a friend-​in-​the-​know — last night. If you bemoan the lack of authentic Italian food and drink, at reasonable prices, salvation is at hand.
Southfields now has a little piece of Italy, transplanted opposite the tube station. The warm ruby-​red awning draws you into the delights inside. Owned by an Italian, with a passion for his native food and drink, the attention to detail is awesome.
The chef (or cook, as he is referred to here) is a fresh import from Italy, so autentico that he only speaks Italian. Owner Valentino insists on using tenero flour direct from Italy, for his bread and pizza, rather than the widely-​used, hard ‘00’ which he believes to be the culprit behind many digestive problems and only suited to baking cakes. The results are obvious, as soon as you taste the freshly baked pizzette: the best — by far — that I have experienced. All the bread, cakes, pastries and pasta are freshly-​made, daily, on the premises.
The black lentil salad platter, accompanied by two kinds of Pecorino (ewes-​milk cheese, both young and mature) that my companion and I shared, was bursting with freshness and taste. The spinach gnocchi were light-​as-​a-​feather and unlike any I have encountered previously. The dessert torte were tantalising and hard to resist.
It’s also worth just popping-​in here for a special DOC (single-​estate) olive oil, packed with flavour, or a £6.50 bottle of the house, richly-​intense red Montepulciano wine to savour at home. Although, recently opened — during the Wimbledon championships, when they had queues around the block — they don’t yet have an alcohol licence for on-​site dining. The intention is to offer a small carafe of wine, with a main course taster-​plate, for £10.
Open from 6am for a freshly-​baked in-​house breakfast cornetto (croissant) and caffè, until late in the evening: you can choose to take-​out, sit inside, or outside under the colourful canopy, to enjoy your purchases. If I lived nearby, this would definitely become my local.