Pasta near me
Quick answer
Sit-down Italian restaurants near you for fresh pasta, sorted by distance, with Food Standards Agency hygiene ratings.
Where the good pasta is
This list shows Italian restaurants rather than takeaways, because pasta is at its best within a minute or two of leaving the pan. Sauce keeps cooking on hot pasta and dried pasta goes on absorbing liquid, so a carbonara that was glossy in the kitchen can be claggy after a delivery ride.
Fresh or dried
Fresh egg pasta suits butter, cream and delicate sauces: tagliatelle with ragù, ravioli, lasagne. Good dried pasta, made from durum wheat, holds its bite and suits olive oil and tomato sauces: spaghetti, penne, rigatoni. A kitchen that makes its own fresh pasta will usually say so on the menu, and it is worth ordering the dish it is proudest of.
What to order
Carbonara is a good test of a kitchen: it should be egg, hard cheese, cured pork and black pepper, with no cream. Arrabbiata tests the tomato sauce. Gnocchi should be light, not dense. If there is a daily special, it is usually the freshest thing on the menu.
Checking the hygiene rating
Each listing shows the Food Standards Agency rating for that premises. Italian restaurants handle raw egg, cured meat and dairy, so hygiene matters. A 5 is what you should expect from a well-run kitchen; a 3 or lower is worth a second thought.
Find them near you
Search by postcode or use your location to find results near you.
Where to find them
UK councils with the most matches in our directory.
Related dishes
Carbonara is spaghetti bound in a glossy sauce of egg yolk, hard cheese and rendered guanciale, with black pepper and nothing else. No cream, no garlic, no onion, no peas. It is a Roman dish and the one most often mangled in Britain; the whole skill is making the egg into a silky sauce without scrambling it.
LasagneLasagne is layers of flat pasta, meat ragù, béchamel and Parmesan, baked until the top is browned and the edges crisp. The Bolognese version, lasagne alla Bolognese, is the reference: a slow-cooked ragù, a proper white sauce, and green spinach pasta in the classic recipe. In the UK it is the most familiar Italian bake and the one most likely to be made from a jar; the real thing is a different dish.
GnocchiGnocchi are small soft dumplings, most often made from potato and flour, boiled and served with a sauce. Light gnocchi are a triumph of texture; heavy ones are a lump of dough. They are eaten across Italy, traditionally on Thursdays in Rome, and in the UK they appear on most Italian menus, sometimes fresh and pillowy, sometimes from a vacuum pack.
RavioliRavioli are squares or rounds of fresh pasta enclosing a filling, most often ricotta and spinach, or meat, or pumpkin. They are the best known of the stuffed pastas, and the fresh, made-in-house version is a different thing from the dried supermarket kind. A good plate of ravioli is dressed lightly so the filling and the thin pasta lead.