Cinquecento is a miracle in Archway

Holloway Road isn’t pretty. Right from Highbury Corner it begins to assert itself as a different beast from Upper Street. At first there are still a few bourgeois redoubts — Majestic Wine to one side, Boris’s lair to the other. Half way up, there’s the Palace of Waitrose, where the prosperous are well served at price tags they don’t bother to examine.

Thereafter, though, things turn rough. By the time you reach Archway, you’re in another world. Yet it’s here that chef Mario Magli and manager, Giorgio Pili, have chosen to open a small, friendly, low-priced but high-aiming Italian place, Cinquecento (capriciously named after the tiny Fiat). In this neighbourhood, it’s an uncovenanted blessing, all the more welcome since the only other serious possibility in the area, the gastropub St John’s on Junction Road, seems to be in the doldrums.

Magli, from Varese in northern Italy, has been in London for 10 years, working for Antonio Carluccio at Neal Street, Gennaro Contaldo at Passione, and also, for a couple of years, for Jamie Oliver at 15. Pili has worked for Carluccio and Contaldo too. At Cinquecento, they are not just chef and manager but joint-owners, an independent venture presumably made possible by this modest site.

Although Cinquecento is spartanly furnished it has a happy, buzzy atmosphere, fostered by the charming service. On the night we were there, there was an academic gent dining alone, a young pair on a first date, a couple of guys who looked like they could be kitchen workers themselves, as well as a film-director.

The food is straightforwardly great value, generously served too. Raviolo ripieno di provolone e menta for just £2.40 was four crispy packages full of strong melted cheese with a minty tang — a great accompaniment to a glass of Soave at just £2.15. These prices are more like a third than a half of what you might pay in fancier locations.

Zuppa di piselli con crème fraîche (£5.10) was a huge serving of a rich, well-textured summery soup, again with mint — interesting that it was finished with cream, rather than olive oil and parmesan. Tagliatelle with an ortolana sauce (£6.10 for a starter, £7.40 for a main) was pleasant enough, the fresh vegetables well scented with basil, though the tagliatelle remained a little too al dente.

The potato gnocchi are a highlight at Cinquecento — freshly made in the kitchen, as light as a feather, without any of the heavy, claggy texture you get from bought produce. With sausage and tomato sauce, flavoured with fennel seeds (starter £6.30, main £7.70), they would make an entirely satisfying meal, at a price comparable to a takeaway.

Even the most expensive dishes on the menu come in under £13. Grigliata mista di pesce (£12.30) was a lavish plateful of prawns, squid and monkfish served with plenty of grilled vegetables, perhaps a little sloppily presented — but then the feeling here is of good home-cooking, not restaurant pretentiousness.

Sicilian rabbit (£11.50) was tender, richly flavoured with dried tomatoes, olives and pistachios and served with a great mound of quartered olive-oil roasted potatoes — more than we could finish. None of it is hugely ambitious stuff; more just what you’d want to eat after a long day at work. If it’s not quite up to the mark of Jamie’s in Oxford, where Contaldo himself has been in charge, it’s in the same arena.

By now we were done and didn’t manage desserts. They open with ice-creams and sorbets at £1.20 and £1.25 a scoop, the price of about four minutes’ parking in Islington. As for water, the offer was just "still or sparkling" but at £1.60 for a bottle of San Benedetto, bottled didn’t seem a crazy extravagance.