Italian
LOCANDA LOCATELLI
- Monday: Closed
- Tuesday: 6:00 – 11:00 PM
- Wednesday: 12:00 – 3:00 PM, 6:00 – 11:00 PM
- Thursday: 12:00 – 3:00 PM, 6:00 – 11:00 PM
- Friday: 12:00 – 3:00 PM, 6:00 – 11:00 PM
- Saturday: 12:00 – 3:00 PM, 6:00 – 11:00 PM
- Sunday: 12:00 – 3:00 PM, 6:00 – 10:30 PM
Opened by Giorgio Locatelli in 2002, Michelin-starred Locanda Locatelli is known for smart Italian food, and though it’s a high-end place, it’s got a great convivial atmosphere too. You can expect dishes like artichoke salad with Parmigiano Reggiano, roast rabbit leg with polenta & grilled radicchio, basil-crusted plaice with potato & black olives and the pasta is top-notch too. It is on the spenny side, so save this place for a special occasion – although there’s nothing stopping you from coming in for a plate of pasta and a glass of wine. Treat yo’self.
LUCA
- Monday: Closed
- Tuesday: 6:00 – 10:00 PM
- Wednesday: 12:00 – 10:00 PM
- Thursday: 12:00 – 10:00 PM
- Friday: 12:00 – 10:00 PM
- Saturday: 12:00 – 10:00 PM
- Sunday: Closed
Luca, from the team behind The Clove Club, serves modern Italian food using British ingredients, so there are traditional-with-a-twist pasta dishes like agnolotti cacio e pepe with short rib and spaghettini with Morecambe Bay shrimps & mace butter alongside plates like Orkney scallops with jerusalem artichoke & nduja, Cornish halibut with porcini & pancetta, and salt-baked celeriac with chanterelles. Whether you for a plate of pasta or the whole antipasti, primi, secondi, dolci route, don’t under any circumstances skip the parmesan fries. The bar at Luca is a separate and distinct space and people are encouraged to drop in and have a drink and snack, so you can still get a flavour of the place if you’re short on time.
NORMA
- Monday: 12:00 – 10:30 PM
- Tuesday: 12:00 – 10:30 PM
- Wednesday: 12:00 – 10:30 PM
- Thursday: 12:00 – 10:30 PM
- Friday: 12:00 – 10:30 PM
- Saturday: 12:00 – 10:30 PM
- Sunday: Closed
Ben Tish, Culinary Director of The Stafford London, is also responsible for Norma the hotel’s first independent restaurant. Norma is all about Sicily, drawing influence from the island’s cafe culture, old-school Italian hospitality and morish flavours. Taking over a converted townhouse Norma is split across three floors; the ground and first floors are home to the restaurant and cocktail bar with a private dining space up top. As well as the namesake pasta alla norma, the deep fried spaghetti fritters, the beech-smoked anchovies and homemade cannoli are not to be missed. Naturally the drinks list leans heavily on Sicily too with Marsala wines and cocktails made with chinotto, vermouth and limoncello.
Opened in 1987, The River Cafe is one of London’s most influential restaurants, launching the careers of Jamie Oliver and Theo Randall to name a few. Still as relevant as ever, The River Cafe is the model that a lot of the other restaurants on this map are based on: fresh, seasonal Italian ingredients, treated with the lightest of touches. The River Cafe changes its menu twice a day (yes TWICE) depending on what’s available and in season, but you can always be sure that it will deliver the goods. There’s anitpasti such as Roman artichokes with Amalfi lemon, and sea bass carpaccio; pasta dishes like ravioli stuffed with buffalo ricotta, garden herbs & lemon zest with marjoram butter; and secondi of whole wood-roasted pigeon, and chargrilled Scottish scallops with zucchini fritti, chilli and mint. For dessert there is one thing that is always on the menu – the classic, unbelievably gooey and rich chocolate nemesis cake. A meal at The River Cafe doesn’t come cheap, but it’s well worth a splurge at least once to experience one of London’s most iconic restaurants.
Not content with turning out some of the best pastries in town, Pophams in Hackney flips into a pasta restaurant come the evening. Makes sense when you consider working with pastry and bread dough isn’t miles away from rolling out pasta. It’s a short, regularly changing menu that features dishes like pig cheek tortellini, nduja scarpinocc, and taleggio cappelletti with grapes, and because the plates are small, you can easily order the whole menu. Make it a real carb fest with a wedge of their sourdough and insane balsamic butter.
Jay Patel (former Barrafina and Koya City GM) and chef Matt Beardmore (ex-Trullo) are the dynamic duo behind Legare in Shad Thames, which is all about seasonal produce, fresh pasta and low-intervention wine. It’s a simple understated space with white walls, an open kitchen and plain wooden furniture and benches. Keeping it simple is the order of the day in the kitchen too – think stracciatella with sobrasada, gnocco fritto, orecchiette with fennel sausage & cavolo nero ragu, and stracci with crab, chilli & pangrattato. All of this is complemented by a tight wine list of natural and low intervention bottles, mainly coming from Italy.
Located on Holloway Road, newly opened pasta restaurant Berto is the latest site from pizzeria Zia Lucia, which is right next door. The restaurant serves a selection of fresh pasta which is made on site daily. Dishes include Gnocchi with nduja and melted stracciatella, and wholewheat fettuccine with zuchini and tomatoes, all served in traditional yet very Instagrammable crockery. The pasta at Berto is not only fres and tasty but won’t do damage to your bank account either, with big portions ranging from £8-13 – buon appetito!
If you like your restaurants OTT then you won’t find anywhere better than Circolo Popolare. The second London restaurant from the Big Mamma group, after the equally extra Gloria, is massive and every inch of the interiors are decked out, from thousands of spirit bottles lining the walls to ceilings covered in plants. As you’d expect, nothing is subtle here and that includes the food – carbonara is served tableside inside a giant wheel of cheese, there are sharing size giant open lasagne and the mushroom pasta comes blanketed in truffles and a rich mascarpone sauce.
With Palatino also on his books it’s clear that Stevie Parle knows what Italian food is all about and he’s nailed it here at Pastaio too. The dishes are simple and comforting, prepared with good ingredients by chefs that know how to treat them well. The pasta is made in-house and as the head chef is from Rome there are a few regional specialities to choose from, like the cacio e pepe, which is an absolute must for all the cheese fiends out there. The wild boar, rabbit and pork angoli is alsoa winner though, the parcels are generously packed with rich shredded meat and drenched in a sage butter sauce. DELISH.
LINA STORES
- Monday: 8:00 AM – 11:30 PM
- Tuesday: 8:00 AM – 11:30 PM
- Wednesday: 8:00 AM – 11:30 PM
- Thursday: 8:00 AM – 11:30 PM
- Friday: 8:00 AM – 11:30 PM
- Saturday: 9:00 AM – 12:00 AM
- Sunday: 9:00 AM – 12:00 AM
Lina Stores, which has been supplying Londoners with the best Italian ingredients for over 75 years, is a Soho institution, has a pasta restaurant on Greek Street just around the corner from the Brewer Street deli, as well as a site in Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross. The restaurant has the same mint green exterior, with counter dining on the ground floor and tables in the basement. Pasta is the star of the show here – it’s all handmade daily in the deli, just like it has been since 1944, and head chef Masha Rener has created a menu that features Lina Stores classics as well as regional Italian specialities. The pici with porcini and Umbrian sausage is a standout with the gnocchi with new season peas and salted ricotta running it a close second though. Thankfully the portion sizes allow for you to try a few and, yes, you will be wanting all of them.
In the heart of Fitzrovia, you will find a rather understated eatery named Al Dente, which also happens to be a pasta lab and wine shop. Known in Italy as pastifici, these are places where fresh pasta is made daily and it’s where you can get a quick, fresh meal as well as buy ingredients to use at home. All the pasta,including thetonnarelli cacio e pepe with pecorino, parmesan and black pepper; spaghettoni alla carbonara and paccheri al ragù with minced beef and tomato sauce us super fresh. Small, cosy and perfect for a quick bite (or takeaway) Al Dente is super tasty and very affordable, with their most expensive dish rocking in at £8.95.
Workshop and restaurant Officina 00 run by Elia Sebregondi (formerly of Bone Daddies and Kiln) and Enzo Mirto (formerly of Ella Canta), is industrially styled, with a green-tiled open kitchen and counter on one side, a white-tiled pasta making station on the other and wooden tables in the middle. The menu roams around regions of Italy when it comes to the shape of the pasta but the kitchen puts its own twist on the sauces. The spaghetti with datterini tomatoes and basil is a great version of a classic, and the cappellacci with zucchini, mint and zucchini flowers is another excellent veggie option, especially for courgette fans, as the stuffed parcels come sat on a courgette puree. The linguine with egg yolk, lemon and clams iss the restaurant’s version of a carbonara, swapping the pancetta for shellfish, and we also love the corzetti (small discs of pasta, a new shape to us) mixed into a creamy sauce of wild mushroom, fennel sausage and parsley.