Ristorante Massimo

The Restaurant

Ristorante Massimo opened in 1994 on Penhallow Street in the historic Customs House block, two minutes' walk from Market Square, and has been continuously owned and operated by chef Massimo Morgia and his wife Eve for more than three decades. The dining room is in the granite-walled lower level of a Federal-period building - barrel-vaulted brick ceilings, oil paintings, white linen, twelve heavy four-tops and a few intimate two-tops along the back wall, around fifty-five covers in total. Upstairs at Massimo opened in 2018 as a small-plates wine bar in the same building and runs as a more casual second concept.

The cooking is openly classical - northern Italian with a Roman backbone rather than the regional novelty programmes that have come to define many city-centre Italian rooms. Pasta is rolled in-house every morning and the carbonara, made with guanciale from a Vermont producer, is the room's calling card. Other signatures include hand-cut tagliatelle with a Bolognese ragu that simmers for six hours daily; a homemade meatball plate that has been on the menu since opening and has its own following; a wood-oven branzino in salt crust opened tableside; a saltimbocca alla romana that holds the Roman discipline rather than the American softening; and a tiramisu made to order.

The wine programme is the room's most decorated feature - a 2025 Wine Spectator Award of Excellence, about 240 references with serious depth in Tuscany (multiple Brunello producers across vintages, Super-Tuscan verticals from Ornellaia and Tignanello, a Chianti Classico section that includes biodynamic Riecine and modernist Castello di Volpaia) and a thoughtful Piedmont row that includes both classical Barolo and a small Roero Arneis programme. The cellar is visible behind glass at the back of the dining room. For a Portsmouth dinner that needs a real bottle and a kitchen that has been doing this for thirty years, Massimo is the unambiguous answer.