Italian dishes in the UK

Osso buco is a cross-cut veal shin braised slowly with vegetables and wine until the meat is falling from the bone and the marrow can be scooped from the centre. The name means 'bone with a hole'. It is a Milanese dish, traditionally served with saffron risotto and a fresh gremolata of lemon, garlic and parsley. It is one of the great Italian braises and a sign of a serious northern kitchen.

A Margherita is the plainest and most revealing pizza: tomato, mozzarella, basil and olive oil on a thin base. Named for a nineteenth-century Italian queen, it is the pizza that tells you whether a kitchen has a proper oven and good ingredients, because there is nothing to hide behind. In the UK it is the benchmark order at any pizzeria that claims to be Neapolitan.

The Marinara is the other original Neapolitan pizza: tomato, garlic, oregano and olive oil, with no cheese. Older than the Margherita, it was the sailors' pizza, named for the sea not for seafood, and it contains none. It is the purest test of a pizzeria's dough and tomato, and the cheapest thing on the menu.

Focaccia is a flat, dimpled bread rich with olive oil, salt-crusted on top and soft inside. It is eaten as a snack, a side, or split for a sandwich, and the Ligurian version from around Genoa is the benchmark: thin, oily and salty. In the UK it turns up as a bread basket, a starter and a lunch, and the good version is generous with oil and light in crumb.

A calzone is a folded pizza: the same dough and fillings sealed into a half-moon and baked, so the toppings steam inside rather than crisp on top. The name means 'trouser leg'. It suits fillings that would slide off a flat pizza, ricotta especially, and it is a substantial single-portion meal. A good calzone is well sealed and cooked through, not doughy at the fold.

Bruschetta is grilled bread rubbed with garlic and dressed with olive oil, in its plainest form, or topped with chopped tomato and basil in the version most people know. The word is from bruscare, to roast over coals, and it is pronounced broo-SKET-ta, not broo-SHET-ta. It is a starter and an antipasto, and a good one depends entirely on the bread, the oil and the tomatoes being good.

Minestrone is a thick vegetable soup with beans and pasta or rice, changing with the season and the region. There is no fixed recipe; it is a soup of whatever vegetables are good, made substantial with beans and a starch. It is peasant food at its best, and in the UK it is a reliable, healthy starter or a light meal, though the tinned version bears little relation to a fresh one.

Carbonara is spaghetti bound in a glossy sauce of egg yolk, hard cheese and rendered guanciale, with black pepper and nothing else. No cream, no garlic, no onion, no peas. It is a Roman dish and the one most often mangled in Britain; the whole skill is making the egg into a silky sauce without scrambling it.

Lasagne is layers of flat pasta, meat ragù, béchamel and Parmesan, baked until the top is browned and the edges crisp. The Bolognese version, lasagne alla Bolognese, is the reference: a slow-cooked ragù, a proper white sauce, and green spinach pasta in the classic recipe. In the UK it is the most familiar Italian bake and the one most likely to be made from a jar; the real thing is a different dish.

Risotto is short-grain rice cooked slowly with stock added a ladle at a time, stirred until creamy, and finished with butter and Parmesan. The base is the same everywhere; the flavour changes with what goes in, from saffron risotto alla Milanese to mushroom, seafood or pea. It is a northern Italian dish, and the test of it is texture: creamy but with the grains still firm, poured onto the plate so it spreads, not stiff enough to stand up.

Gnocchi are small soft dumplings, most often made from potato and flour, boiled and served with a sauce. Light gnocchi are a triumph of texture; heavy ones are a lump of dough. They are eaten across Italy, traditionally on Thursdays in Rome, and in the UK they appear on most Italian menus, sometimes fresh and pillowy, sometimes from a vacuum pack.

Ravioli are squares or rounds of fresh pasta enclosing a filling, most often ricotta and spinach, or meat, or pumpkin. They are the best known of the stuffed pastas, and the fresh, made-in-house version is a different thing from the dried supermarket kind. A good plate of ravioli is dressed lightly so the filling and the thin pasta lead.

Penne all'arrabbiata is pasta in a tomato sauce made fiery with dried chilli and garlic. Arrabbiata means 'angry', for the heat. It is a Roman dish, quick and cheap, three or four ingredients, and it is the go-to order for someone who wants pasta with a kick. The good version is simple and sharp; the bad one is a bland tomato sauce with a token pinch of chilli.

Tiramisù is layers of coffee-soaked sponge fingers and a whipped mascarpone-egg cream, dusted with cocoa. The name means 'pick me up', for the coffee and the sugar. It is a modern dish, invented in the Veneto in the 1960s or 70s, and it is the default Italian dessert in Britain; the good version is light and boozy, the bad one is a sweet cream trifle.

Panna cotta is a set cream pudding, barely firm, flavoured with vanilla and served with fruit or caramel. The name means 'cooked cream'. It is a Piedmontese dessert and, done well, one of the most elegant: a wobble on the plate, a clean creamy flavour, and just enough gelatine to hold it and no more. Over-set panna cotta is rubbery; that is the commonest fault.