Pinna

Classic Italian in a Mayfair That Mostly Wants Something Else

Mayfair's restaurant grid has spent the past decade tilting toward omakase counters, high-concept tasting menus, and the kind of rooms that photograph well for reasons unrelated to food. Against that backdrop, a classically framed Italian, seafood, pasta, prime cuts, tiramisu, reads almost as a provocation. Pinna, at 43 Curzon Street in London, earned a Michelin Plate in 2025 alongside a White Star from Star Wine List, is the kind of address that treats restraint as a position rather than a limitation. The cooking is structured around Italian tradition, and the room around genuine hospitality. In a neighbourhood where both of those things are easier to promise than to deliver, that combination carries real weight.

The Italian restaurant tier in London has diversified considerably. At one end, places like Luca fold British produce into Italian frameworks, while Bocca di Lupo surveys regional Italian traditions with a deliberately encyclopaedic approach. Bancone has built a reputation on fresh pasta at a more accessible price point, and Artusi in Peckham operates as a neighbourhood anchor with a similar commitment to simplicity. Pinna sits closer to the classical, premium end of that spectrum: the £££ pricing, the Mayfair postcode, and the Michelin recognition place it in a comparable set where the expectation is polish without the spectacle of a multi-course tasting format.

What the Kitchen Is Actually Doing

The menu logic at Pinna follows a sequence that Italian cooking has refined over generations: seafood to open, pasta as the structural centrepiece, then prime cuts and fish of the day before the dessert course closes things out. This is a deliberate architecture, not a default. The kitchen, directed by Sardinian chef Achille Pinna, works within that structure rather than against it. The Michelin Plate, awarded in 2025, signals cooking that is technically accomplished and consistent, without the elaboration of the starred tier. That is not a diminution; it places Pinna in a category where ingredients and execution carry the argument, rather than technique for its own sake.

Sardinian culinary tradition, which sits at the intersection of Italian mainland cooking, North African influence, and a strong seafood heritage, gives the kitchen a distinctive reference point. Fresh seafood prepared with restraint, and pasta courses that would justify the visit on their own terms, are the reliable through-lines. Tiramisu and cannoli close the meal with the same lack of revision that defines the rest of the menu. This is not food that is trying to surprise you; it is food that has already decided what it is.

The Front-of-House Is Part of the Offer

The editorial angle that makes Pinna coherent is not just what the kitchen produces but how the room operates around it.7 from 149 reviews, meaningful at that volume, points to a front-of-house culture that visitors describe as genuinely attentive rather than formally correct. The Star Wine List White Star, published February 2025, signals that the wine program is being treated seriously as a component of the overall offer, not as an afterthought to the cooking.

In Italian restaurant culture, the relationship between kitchen, floor, and cellar is load-bearing. A well-run Italian room manages the timing between courses with enough ease that the guest feels the meal is unfolding rather than being administered. Service intelligence of that kind requires a front-of-house team that understands the food well enough to pace it, and a sommelier or wine-knowledgeable staff who can read a table's preferences without prompting. The White Star recognition, which Star Wine List uses to identify wine programs with depth and curation, suggests Pinna's wine operation is calibrated to the same level as the kitchen. That alignment between departments is what separates a restaurant that functions as a coherent experience from one where the parts are working independently.

The lively atmosphere described in published reviews is worth reading carefully. In a Mayfair room at the £££ price point, atmosphere can often mean the room has filled with people who are there to be seen rather than to eat. At Pinna, the welcoming character of the service appears to be generating that energy rather than the other way around, a distinction that matters for anyone booking for a meal rather than an occasion.

Where Pinna Fits in the Wider London Picture

London's Italian restaurant offering spans considerable range. At the prestige end, the city competes with the global tier: places like 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana in Hong Kong or cenci in Kyoto demonstrate how Italian culinary language travels when filtered through different contexts. Within the UK's broader fine dining landscape, the conversation tends to be dominated by British-ingredient-led addresses: The Fat Duck in Bray, L'Enclume in Cartmel, Moor Hall in Aughton, Gidleigh Park in Chagford, Hand and Flowers in Marlow, and Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton. Pinna is not operating in that territory; it is making a different case, that classical Italian cooking, executed with discipline and served with care, holds its own in a city that chronically undervalues the direct version of things.

The nearby Archway occupies a different part of London's Italian scene, and the comparison is useful: Italian cooking in London now means something quite wide, from neighbourhood trattorias to destination addresses. Pinna positions itself at the latter end of that range, with a room and a price point that suit the Mayfair context, but with a kitchen philosophy that is closer to the former.

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