The best restaurants serving Italian food in New Forest South East

It might look like a cafe on the outside (if you can find it), but there’s a proper restaurant with a proper kitchen on the inside. A small but varied menu, good portions and tasty. The chef was out among the guests, taking orders and asking if all ok. Well placed confidence. We would definitely return.

Beautiful food, very attentive staff but not intrusive, excellent value for money

The food here is incredible, the service great and the prices very good! Never disappoints! Highly recommend the banoffee pie!

Tasty food, calm atmosphere during the lunchtime

This is a really great find for us. We were simply amazed at the tasty pasta we were served here. (We tried a beef based pasta and a mushroom with truffel.) The service was great. The price was modest for the quality and portions we were served with a smile. There was enough pasta to take away for our lunch the next day. The wine was also very good at an excellent price. Congratulations for employing two Ukranian workers. The one working front of house did his job with both style and care! So glad that we stopped on our journey and found this restaurant - we will be back!

Pre-wedding get together for 29 people. Great food in a lovely setting. Staff were so nice and friendly. Definitely recommend it for lovely Italian food and a nice all round nice dining experience.

A really lovely deli at the bottom of the main high street. Great food, friendly staff and best of all NO dogs allowed. I really appreciated being able to eat without someone's animal bothering me. Thank you!

Excellent meal with fab wine. Went on a week night and what a delight. Service wasn’t fast but it was date night so didn’t care!

As a regular customer to Rays Italian, both my wife and myself would like to thank Stacey for another wonderful meal last night. We love all things Italian and this restaurant certainly presses all the right buttons for us... What do we like about Rays Italian? Not just the great food but the staff are always so welcoming and attentive. Best wishes Mark & Jan Laming.

We had an absolutely fantastic birthday dinner here, and it matches or exceeds everywhere we ate on our holiday in Italy this year! The service was relaxed but very attentive, and the sommelier was superb, matching wines perfectly to our dishes. Each dish was faultless, from the gnocchi to the veal, paired with a wonderful glass of pinot noir. If we lived in the area we would eat here all the time!

We went here on one of our date nights, we are checking out the restaurants in the local area having just moved to ringwood, this restaurant seemed to be the one with least people in and that was for a reason. We were greater and sat down ordered a drink each. All ok. I went to order a main lasagne to be told it’s not available but was not told this before. We had a goats cheese and beetroot salad type thing to start - this was literally beetroot from a can with a slab of goats cheese on top and some spinach.. it was ok but not the best We also ordered garlic bread- considering this is an Italian I would expect more than 2 slices of tiger bread cut in half and some garlic butter on it… The main courses were not good at all, we couldn’t eat them.. both pasta dishes. No one asked us how our meals were, even though we asked for the bill with plates for. It was clear it’s a struggling restaurant so we paid in full. The pizzas maybe better as there was another table in there who seemed happy

Really enjoyed tonight's meal , full of flavour and such amazing staff. Really welcoming. But most importantly the price paid for food was well worth it. Will be back, we had lasagne and the new lobster an crab ravioli which was just yummy and wanting more , will be back soon , thank you very much , really lovely restaurant .

The house was awesome! Getting to the house, lots of stairs! Be prepared.

Just about to change management but we've met the new owner. He guarantees lots of seafood. As he says " he's from Sicily so should know how to cook seafood". Looking forward to it.

This is a real little gem! The food is really lovely, tasty and fresh. The restaurant is very welcoming and the service was brilliant. Not over priced which in today’s market is unusual. We would happily come here again