"A daytime deli and restaurant come evening, Saponara is located in a quiet bit of Islington between Essex Road and Upper Street. Bottles of wine, terracotta ceramics, and boxes of panettone line the deep mahogany cabinets, and there are a handful of long tables primed for sharing and spreading out. This isn’t performatively made to feel like an extension of someone’s home, it just is. Sure, Saponara doesn’t make London’s most superlative-worthy Italian food, but the tortellini ragu is rich and satisfying, and the pizzas—crispy bases topped with speck and shavings of grana padano—are everything you want a pizza to be." - jake missing, heidi lauth beasley, rianne shlebak