Harden's says
Opened in summer 2023 on The Pavement overlooking Clapham Common, the long-promised fifth branch of the veteran Soho Italian deli-turned-restaurant group will unfurl its distinctive green-and- white-striped awning to welcome diners for fresh pasta other Italian specialities, including dozens of cuts of cold meat.
Harden's survey result
Summary
“A nice pit-stop for pasta lovers” – this expanding chain is now up to its fifth restaurant spin-off from the original Soho deli (with the June 2023 opening of a new 80-seater, overlooking Clapham Common), and fans say it provides an “attractive”, “buzzing” setting for “simple dishes, well cooked”. A meal is “unlikely to live long in the memory though”, and there’s a growing fear that “as they have expanded the quality has dropped”. Top Tip – at the W1 original (est. 1944 originally as a deli) “sitting upstairs or by the bar is lovely, the windowless basement is not particularly comfortable”.
Summary
“Beautiful fresh pasta, served from the heart by knowledgeable Italians” is the attractive offer at this small group, spun out of a famous veteran Soho deli (est. 1944) in the past five years under private equity outfit White Rabbit. The “food is good and good value, though limited and very focused on the pasta”. There are now branches in King’s Cross, the City’s Bloomberg Arcade and most recently Marylebone; the farthest-flung is in Tokyo, while Clapham Old Town has been long promised.
Summary
“Small plates but big flavours” from “a lovely short menu of top-quality antipasti and pasta dishes” win numerous “cheap ’n’ cheerful” nominations for this small chain, which consists of the “busy, lovely but very crammed” Soho original (for 75 years a deli, but since 2018 and its relaunch by Private Equity firm White Rabbit, in this new guise) and a newer, bigger but less commented-on King’s Cross spin-off. “We need more branches of this great restaurant” plead fans… whose prayers are soon to be answered with a 90-seater outlet in Marylebone (in Wigmore Street, on the former Sourced Market site) plus in Bloomberg Arcade and Clapham, as well as one in Tokyo!
Summary
“A tiny restaurant with a big heart… and wonderful pasta” – the “transition from great Italian deli to restaurant is a big success” at this landmark, 75-year-old Soho store, which morphed last year from pure retail to providing an “excellent, counter-dining experience at moderate prices” nearby. “If you love pasta, this is the place to go” – “delicately silky, with the most fantastic sauces” – and it’s “a brilliant stop-off before film, theatre etc”. It’s not going to take 75 years to turn this rip-roaring success into a chain, though: branch no. 2 opened in the second half of 2019 in one of King’s Cross’s ‘heritage buildings’: ‘an 100-cover outfit decorated in the same pale green-and white-stripes that diners in Soho have come to know’.
For 33 years we've been curating reviews of the UK's most notable restaurant. In a typical year, diners submit over 50,000 reviews to create the most authoritative restaurant guide in the UK. Each year, the guide is re-written from scratch based on this survey (although for the 2021 edition, reviews are little changed from 2020 as no survey could run for that year).
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