Angelina's Dublin

You'll smell the wood-fired oven before you even spot this place tucked along Percy Place, where the Grand Canal meets proper Italian cooking. The kind of spot where they're rolling fresh pasta in the morning and charring perfect leopard-spotted bases by evening, while you're sat watching the canal boats drift past through those big front windows. The menu sticks to what works — think cacio e pepe that actually tastes like Rome, not some sad cream sauce imposter, and pizzas with just enough char to make you forget about every mediocre margherita you've suffered through elsewhere. It's the sort of neighbourhood Italian that Ballsbridge locals guard jealously, though word's well and truly out now. Weekend brunch brings proper Italian coffee culture to Dublin, which frankly we needed more of.