Restaurant review: Pasta Evangelists

Tristan O’Hana doesn’t have to stray far from home to experience the first Pasta Evangelists restaurant outside of the capital.

I remember the first time I witnessed the Pasta Evangelists model in action. I was at a friend’s house some 10 years ago and he was telling me how his dad got fresh pasta boxes delivered to the house. Seems, for his dad, even cooking up some pasta for himself was too much of a challenge. 

But then I learned more. Sure enough, the next time I visited his parents, there was a DIY pasta meal kit sat in the kitchen, complete with fresh pasta, sauce and some elegant branding. It was part of a subscription which saw a variety of pastas and sauces arriving through his letterbox every week – he had heard about them on Dragons’ Den.

In fact, so had millions of others, and since 2016 Pasta Evangelists has been delivering boxes of restaurant-quality pasta across the UK, inviting people to prepare dishes in five minutes, using fresh and, where possible, Italian ingredients.

Despite being well fed during the pitch, the Dragons opted not to invest in the idea, with one of them declaring it a “pasta la disaster”. Very clever. However, a nice warm bowl of humble rigatoni was promptly served up to the moguls when the business was sold to the Barilla Group in early 2021 for tens of millions (exact figures vary, depending on where you look). Barilla, the 146-year-old pasta and bakery enterprise and the world’s largest producer of pasta, was wowed by the percentage increase in sales since the brand’s launch, going from just 200 portions in early 2016 to in excess of 1m in 2020 alone. 

For those inside the hospitality industry looking out, concepts such as this could be considered a threat to the sector, sitting alongside the M&S Gastropub range or any other retail initiative that aims to replicate dining out – i.e. keeping guests in their homes and away from venues. I do wonder at what point Pasta Evangelists co-founders Alessandro Savelli, Finn Lagun and Chris Rennoldson stopped and thought to themselves: “Hold on. We do restaurant-quality pasta for people at home. What if we did it for… restaurants?” While the trio opened a full-service offer in Harrod’s Dining Hall in May 2021, not long after the money came in from Barilla. It wasn’t until 2024 when their first standalone restaurant appeared in Richmond, marking a huge turning point for the brand as it transitioned from a delivery service model to a restaurant-led operation. 

Fresh out the box 

Much like the rest of the hospitality industry, I knew a lot more about Past Evangelists by this point, having watched the delivery side of things grow over the years. What’s more, in 2022, it launched its Pasta Academy, led by head chef Roberta d’Elia, which teaches people how to create classic and more intricate pasta shapes from scratch. You can find these academies in most of the restaurants.

Bringing these two offers – tutorials and restaurants – together was no new thing, with this particular pasta focus reminding me of Burro e Salvia in Shoreditch, which sadly shut up shop last summer. While plenty of operators offer masterclasses that revolve around their specific cuisine, there’s something about seeing pasta rollers, cutters, shape stamps, rolling pins and flour in the window of a restaurant that subconsciously adds to perceived authenticity of what you’re about to eat. This was certainly the case for me when I peered through the shopfront of Pasta Evangelists in Guildford, close to where I live, not long after it opened in July last year. Coincidentally, the same month that Burro e Salvia closed its doors. 

Following the opening of its flagship Farringdon restaurant in June 2025, which has been transformed from an exclusive cookery class-based location into a multiple-purpose restaurant and Pasta Academy, the business announced a succession of further locations that would take the brand outside of London and into dozens of UK towns and cities. In fact, just one month after Guildford opened its doors, the operator revealed it is aiming for 100 restaurants within five years. So, what can UK diners expect? 

Simple spaghetti

The USP of the Pasta Evangelists delivery model was that it was fresh and it was simple – it feels like the founders took those points and converted them into a scalable restaurant blueprint. In its Guildford branch, the colour tones are identical to the maroon and light beige found on the original letterbox packaging; the room is stripped back, clean and open. With its unfussy pine furniture, minimal décor and floor-to-ceiling windows, it almost feels like a sort of modern canteen – I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. If it was the latter, I think that is only because most menus were splattered with oil and various (and I’m sure once delicious) sauces. Given it has been open less than a year, these essentials unfortunately already felt a little weathered. 

Of course, with the menu, the business has had to expand its offer, bringing nibbles, starters and desserts into the mix. But on top of those, pizza and risotto also sit as a necessary afterthought beneath the pasta mains. One would imagine, though, if you’re heading to Pasta Evangelists, you’re going to order some pasta. We certainly did. 

Its Fresh Pasta section opens with The Carbonara of Dreams, made with pancetta and guanciale. For £14.95 for the regular portion (you can make it grande for a few more quid), it was a really good bowl of spaghetti. Have I dreamt of it since? Not yet, but it certainly hasn’t come back to haunt me. On top of that, we tried the ‘Nduja and Chicken Sauce with Rigatoni, featuring Calabrian sausage, mascarpone and lemon (again, £14.95) and the Basil, Pesto ‘Alla Genovese’, King Prawns, Supergreen Gnocchi (£15.95). A solid-looking bowl of tasty carbs and fish. 

Three of us ate these winter warmers at a quiet Pasta Evangelists on a wet Wednesday afternoon. Whether it was the ghastly weather outside or the fact that most neighbouring businesses had a January offer on the go, there were only two tables in, including us. For a good feed, alongside a few soft drinks and a couple of coffees, we paid £25 each, including service, which is pretty good value. The question is, I suppose, was it enough to tempt people out of their homes for the Pasta Evangelists food they could previously cook up themselves? For me, the dishes were nearly identical to the pasta that arrived through my letterbox all those years ago – good pasta, good sauce, happy days. It feels like the founders have simply brought the Pasta Evangelists offer to the high street, and I guess that was the whole idea, right?

You may also be interested in…