Italian
The Forza Win team has gone back to the roof with Forza Wine. The spot, on top of a renovated space on Rye Lane (complete with some epic views over Peckham), serves up an Italian small plates menu with dishes like lamb & pickled chilli flatbread, cauliflower fritti, and pork collar with wild garlic. There are plenty of drinks to go with the food, including wine, beers and frozen negronis, and there’s even a lift so you don’t have to worry about trying to make it down the stairs when you’re smashed – anyone who’s made the climb up and down to Frank’s will appreciate this.
Cafe Murano Bermondsey is Angela Hartnett’s third outpost of her Michelin-starred Murano brand and this site feels very different to those in St James and Covent Garden. It features an open kitchen front and centre with dining counters overlooking the bar, kitchen and Bermondsey St itself. The menu features some new additions as well as the much-loved classics – there’s our favourite chicken Milanese, but also the likes of guinea fowl agnolotti, hake with mussels & n’duja, and delicia pumpkin tortelli. The all-Italian wine list is pretty impressive too, championing low intervention varieties. And if you’re really not sure what to choose, you can’t go wrong with Angela’s own Rosato.
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.
BIG MAMMA LAUNCHES NAPOLI GANG
We’re all about this GANG GANG. The team behind cult resto’s Gloria and Circolo Popolare, Big Mamma has launching Napoli Gang, a brand new, delivery-only kitchen that sends naughty, artisanal, home-made Italian food to your door. Oh yes, you’re gonna wanna get a pizza this! There’s the Hot Damn with Calabrian spicy nduja, San Marzano tomato and candied red onions; Greta’s pizza with red and yellow cherry tomatoes or the Notorious B.I.Cheese with mozza fior di latte, gorgonzola dop, parmigiano reggiano and black pepper.
Pizzas might be the star of the show but the rest ain’t just a bit on the side, there’s arancini al tartufo; Tuscan pork stew; or a creamy Apulian burrata to give them a run for their money. Napoli Gang is available within a two-mile radius of their Shoreditch, Kentish Town and Wandsworth kitchens, and they’ve just opened one in Wood Green so all you North London peeps can get in on the action too.
Want To Know The Best Pizza Joints In London?Grab A Slice Of ThisBen 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.
Inside the Art Deco building of Mortimer House, which is also home to a members’s club, events space and gym, is Mortimer House Kitchen, a Soho House-esque all-day set up open to the public where Tom Cenci (who heads up Nessa, the restaurant at the group’s other club 1 Warwick) is cooking up an Italian menu. Inspired by Cenci’s family summers in Piedmont and the Amalfi coast, the menu at Mortimer House Kitchen features dishes that reflect the simplicity of Italian cooking and pay homage to the classics, including the likes of crispy polenta and parmesan mayonnaise; zucchini caesar with parmesan and pangrattato; carne cruda and ‘nduja bruschetta; maccheroni with taleggio, truffle and black pepper; chicken or aubergine parmigiana with fresh spaghetti and cured egg yolk on the side; Torta 900 chocolate cake; and pistachio cannoli.
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.
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.
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.
It’s clear that Stevie Parle knows what Italian food is all about and he’s nailed it here at Pastaio. 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, 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.
This laid back pasta place has a fairly simple menu serving only pasta and a handful of snacks. The pasta, however, is anything but basic with interesting flavour combos and serves. The tortello carbonara is their spin on a classic carbonara only it’s presented as pasta parcels filled with percorino, crispy cured pork cheek and zabaione, so each one is an explosion of flavour. The homemade cannolo is worth staying around for too!
Bancone is one of the best places to get fresh pasta in London, and the prices aren’t too bad either (considering it’s in central London). Padella may have kicked off the trend, but Bancone is right up there in terms of quality and also takes reservations, meaning no waiting in line like at Padella. Bancone’s Exec chef Ben Waugh guides the team in creating seasonal dishes such as silk handkerchiefs covered in walnut butter and an egg yolk; cacio e pepe; and ravioli filled with beef shin ‘ossobuco’ and covered in saffron butter. They’re all knock-out good.
Gloria is Parisian restaurant group Big Mamma’s first foray into London and they certainly arrived with a bang. It’s full on, both outside and in with bright colours, plants, a central bar with hundreds of glowing bottles, and every inch of space decorated with pictures and mirrors. The menu is just as OTT with massive sharing pastas, carbonara served at the table in a cheese wheel, pizzas with names like Regina Instagram and Robert De Nitro, and lemon meringue pies the size of your head.
Housed in the former Montego Inn in Brixton, Maremma is all about showcasing produce, particularly game and seafood, and wine from the Maremma part of Tuscany (it’s the southwestern portion by the coast FYI). Much of the wine list hasn’t been seen in the UK before so you really are getting something new. The menu is tight, with only a handful of antipasti, primi and secondi – definitely don’t miss the signature tortelli Maremmani, fat parcels stuffed with spinach and ricotta, and swimming in sage butter.
Even though Padella is the spin-off restaurant, it’s arguably more famous than its big sis Trullo (low prices and long queues will always attract attention). Not only can you get the very same pasta (admittedly the selection is smaller) including the famous beef shin pappardelle and the pici cacio e pepe, but at Trullo you’ve got some knockout seasonal Italian dishes on offer too, from rustic antipasti to fish and meat cooked over charcoal.
Emilia’s Crafted Pasta has recently opened up its doors in Aldgate. This is their second London site to open and follows in the footsteps of the original restaurant in St Katharine Docks by showcasing the best of Italian food, including making all the pasta in-house. We recommend starting with the burrata, which is served with warm ciabatta and lashings of extra virgin oil, followed by the salmon carbonara, a delish twist on the classic. Top food paired with a relaxed atmosphere makes Emilia’s the ideal place to get your pasta fix.
