There are restaurants you go to for a quick bite, and then there are places where the building is half the reason to book. Ennios Ristorante & Boutique Rooms sits in the Geddes Warehouse, a Grade II listed red-brick warehouse that has stood on Town Quay since 1866, and it manages to pull off both a proper Italian dinner and a night's sleep under the same roof.
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The history is the first thing that catches you. The warehouse was built as a luggage store for Donald Geddes, the Harbour Board's surveyor at the time, and the inscription 'G. Geddes, Surveyor, 1866' still marks the west end. It sits on the old city walls, with the oldest masonry dating back to 1338, when the medieval walls were raised by order of Edward III after a French and Genoese raid burnt the town. In April 1912, the building was full of luggage destined for the Titanic. Today, it's a six-storey red-brick block with grey and yellow dressings on the north side of Town Quay, sometimes known as Porters House because it faces Porters Lane.
Inside, the restaurant does authentic Italian with handmade pasta, slow-braised meats, and lemons, capers and olive oil brought in from the countryside. The house speciality is the brodetto di pesce, a fish and seafood stew with a chilli kick served with grilled ciabatta, which runs £20 as a starter or £35 as a main. The chef's signature is a cod fillet with handmade gnocchi, mussels and a lemon and parsley sauce. The wine list leans serious, with Antinori's Tignanello, Solaia and Guado al Tasso, a Bolgheri Matarocchio at £675 and Sassicaia among the bottles. The accolades back it up: an AA Rosette for 2026, five silver AA stars plus an AA breakfast award, and Corriere della Sera voting it the best Italian in Hampshire, with more than a dozen years of AA recognition and a 4.7 rating across more than 2,300 reviews.
Upstairs, there are ten boutique rooms — Executive Superior, Superior, Deluxe Double and Deluxe Twin — so you can roll straight into bed after dinner. Krystoff runs the place as general manager. If you time it right, there's music too: Robbie Sczabo, known as 'the Transylvanian Crooner', plays a mix of Motown and jazz on the last weekend of every month.
On the practical side, the bar opens from 5pm, lunch runs 12pm to 2:30pm Monday to Saturday and 12pm to 8pm on Sundays, and dinner is 6pm to 10pm every day, with last orders at 10pm. It's open seven days a week. Location-wise, it couldn't be more convenient for anyone coming by water: it sits right in front of the Red Funnel terminal for the Isle of Wight and a short walk from the cruise terminals. It's also about ten minutes from Southampton Central station and ten minutes on foot to West Quay shopping centre. For bookings, it's 023 8022 1159 or ennios.co.uk.
