Lo Spuntino, the little Italian restaurant on Blossom Street not far from the Everyman Cinema, is described online as a ‘small, family-friendly eatery serving pizza, pasta and familiar meat-oriented Mediterranean dishes’.

Apart from the fact that, when we visited, we couldn’t see any sign of pizza anywhere on the menu, that is more or less exactly what it is.

Lo Spuntino means, apparently, ‘The Snack’. In which case, this little restaurant was being overly modest when it chose its name. The food on offer - from classic Italian antipasti starters to pasta, risottos and a selection of succulent chicken and steak dishes - is far more than just snack food.

Lo Spuntino is a low-key little restaurant from the outside. Step through the doors, and you’re in a small, single-room restaurant with an appealing mustard-and-teal colour scheme. The tables are small - a little too small for comfort, to be perfectly honest - but the staff are immediately welcoming and friendly.

The menu is fairy simple, but - barring the lack of any pizzas - full of what you’d expect from a good Italian eatery. Aperitivi (tasty little starter snacks designed to whet the appetite) included selections of Italian salami, cheese, olives and pickles.

The antipasti, meanwhile, included focaccia with olives, bruschetti, classic Italian salad and polpette, ie spicy Italian meatballs in tomato and garlic sauce.

I ordered a glass of cold white Gavi di Gavi (£7.50) - a fresh, light wine perfect, I thought, for pasta - while pondering the menu. Lili, meanwhile, sipped from a cup of hot water the staff had obligingly provided at her request.

We chose a portion of focaccia and olives (9.75) to share as a starter. This was attractively presented on a wooden board, the grilled focaccia, which was still warm and crisp on top, sliced into fingers, the juicy olives presented in their own little wooden bowl.

It made for a winning combination. The focaccia, with its tasty cheese, tomato and red onion topping, was still warm from the grill or oven, fresh and fluffy and with just the right crunch on top. Dipped in a little olive oil mixed with balsamic vinegar it was delicious.

The vegetarian options on the mains menu were fairly limited, but I opted for the spaghetti fuata (£9.50) - spaghetti with a garlic, chilli, pesto and napoletana sauce - with a side of Italian salad (4.25). The pasta was perfectly cooked and nicely al dente, the sauce a rich concoction with a real chilli kick and just a hint of pesto lurking beneath the heat.

It was a combination of flavours that worked surprisingly well, though I could have done with a little more of the pesto, a little less of the chilli.

As suggested by the restaurant’s online entry with its mention of ‘meat-oriented Mediterranean dishes’, there is a much better selection of meaty mains. These include various chicken options; a truly impressive range of sirloin and fillet steaks; risottos (among them an interesting-looking mixed seafood risotto); and a couple of fish options, including sea bass cooked with garlic, cherry tomatoes and, of course, olives.

Lili chose the pollo valdostana (£14.50) - chicken pan-fried with ham, spring onions, garlic, mozzarella and cream. She balked a little at the cream, not being a big fan of dairy, and asked if the dish could be cooked without. Not really, our waitress explained - it would be too dry.

Lili decided to order it anyway, cream and all, and wasn’t disappointed. It was tender, juicy, and packed with flavour, she said - some of the best chicken she’d eaten outside China, which for her is praise indeed. Even the rich cream sauce didn’t put her off.

Her chicken came with a side dish of vegetables - thick sliced crunchy carrots, buttered cabbage and crisp roasted potatoes - which we quickly polished off between us.

No one does ice cream better than the Italians, so we were glad to see gelato featuring on the dessert menu, at £5.95 a serving.

Lili opted for the coppa cioccolata e nocciola, a rich, gooey concoction of hazelnut and dark chocolate ice cream swirled with chocolate syrup in a glass.

It was rich and bursting with flavour the way only Italian ice cream can be. My flute limoncello, meanwhile - lemon ice-cream with swirls of limoncello sauce in a fluted glass - was tart enough to pucker the tongue, but wonderfully refreshing.

With a cup of deliciously bitter coffee for me to finish, the total bill, wine included, came to £66.50 for the two of us.

That isn’t cheap. But it was a very good meal at a restaurant which easily outdoes its modest name.