LDNGuide
7 Pasta Kits For When You’re Really Missing Padella
They say you never know what you have until it’s gone. We never truly understood this statement until we went from weekly handmade cacio e pepe sessions to staring at an empty supermarket shelf wondering which herd of panic buyers ran off with the last of the fusilli. Luckily, throughout this past year, more and more of London’s most beloved pasta spots have got in on the meal kit game. That means you can still enjoy excellent handmade pasta in the comfort of your own home. Read on for ricotta ravioli, a spicy mafalde, and even Padella’s signature pappardelle.
The Spots
We’ll let you in on an incredibly juicy Infatuation London behind-the-scenes secret and tell you that our old office was a two-minute walk from Burro E Salvia. Okay, as behind the scenes secrets go, it’s not that juicy, but it does mean that you can trust us when we say that Burro’s take-home handmade pasta offerings have always been a winner. Now you can also order it directly to your door, along with their freshly made sauces. You can’t really go wrong with any of the options, but it’s definitely worth getting involved in the agnolotti cavour with butter and sage.
You’ll have to excuse us a moment. At the memory of sitting at this restaurant’s marble counter armed with a bottle of red and a best mate, we’ve got a bit teary-eyed.
Okay, we read some uplifting Elizabeth Gilbert quotes, we’re back. With locations in Soho and Covent Garden, Bancone is a truly lovely pasta bar, famous for its silk handkerchiefs. Not like Bridgerton-esque silk handkerchiefs, but an incredibly rich, indulgent pasta dish. However, our personal favourite is the spicy pork and nduja mafalde, which is just one of the dishes available as a meal kit. Prices start at £18 for the cacio e pepe but we’d say it’s worth the extra fiver for that more-more-more mafalde.
Cancel those sad spag bol plans you had for tonight, and order some same-day handmade pappardelle with fresh ragu from Pophams instead. In the great Before Times, Pophams was predominantly a bakery which transformed into a great, little candlelit pasta joint in the evening. But you can hit up their same-day delivery service, and maybe the candle section of their homeware website, to recreate the perfect date night on your sofa. A bottle of wine and some of their olives won’t hurt either.
Handmaking pasta is all fun and games until your kitchen floor is covered in flour and you start referring to the pasta maker as your ‘stupid rolly, rolly nemesis’. Let the people at Artusi do all the hard work for you. This excellent little neighbourhood Italian in Peckham are delivering trottole, tagliatelle, casarecce, and linguine, but it’s their sauces that have really caught our eye. As well as go-tos like pomodoro and arrabiata, there’s an ox cheek and red wine ragu, nduja and mascarpone, and a vegan broccoli, chilli, and garlic situation that we would like to eat right now, please and thank you.
La Mia Mamma’s cacio e pepe should be entered into some kind of comfort food olympics where the ‘athletes’ have to battle it out to see which one makes your soul feel like it’s being spooned by a labrador puppy. Spoiler: this cacio e pepe would take home gold. The pasta at this proper family-feel Italian restaurant is easily some of the best in London and their huge survival kit from their online shop comes with a casual 1kg of pre-rolled pasta dough for you to recreate them at home. We’re talking ricotta ravioli, bolognese tagliatelle, and of course, that signature cacio e pepe.
To truly get the authentic Padella experience at home, you’re going to need to grab a mask, go outside, and stand on your doorstep in the cold for an hour toe-tapping and mentally chanting ‘the pici will make all this waiting worth it’. Yes, usually to enjoy this ever popular pasta bar’s dishes you need to do some serious queuing, but not with their DIY kits. All of their signature pastas are available - including that 8-hour beef ragu pappardelle - as well as antipasti, a marmalade negroni, and how-to videos by one of their owners Tim that we find oddly soothing. Enjoy.
Fresh truffle ravioli or that bag of dried penne that has been in your cupboard since Westlife were in the charts? Decisions, decisions, but somehow, we have a feeling we know which one you’re going to go for. Lina Stores is not only delivering fresh artichoke and truffle ravioli nationwide, but their entire online shop is basically handmade ravioli heaven. There’s pumpkin ravioli. There’s nduja and scamorza ravioli. There’s even fresh veal ravioli. We’re going to stop saying ‘ravioli’ now, but you should also know that they’ve also got big family-ready pasta kits and the classics like pappardelle and homemade basil pesto covered too.
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