Phil Howard to open pasta restaurant OTTO in Piccadilly
Following the success of the London-based pasta delivery business, the Michelin-starred chef and business partner Julian Dyer will open a 74-cover all-day pasta bar located in London’s Piccadilly this November.
Executive chef Louis Korovilas, formerly of Locanda Locatelli, Pied à Terre, and Bancone, will head up the kitchen and will work alongside general manager Nicholas Georgoulakis, who has worked at Howard’s and business partner Rebecca Mascarenhas' Elystan Street, and Harvi Singh, formerly of Le Manoir aux Quat’saisons and Elystan Street, as operations manager.
The menu will feature authentic pasta dishes as well as snacks, starters and desserts with dishes on the menu changing according to the season. Launch dishes will include gnocchetti with smashed sausage, white wine, fennel and chilli (£10); pappardelle with slow cooked shin of beef, oxtail and red wine (£13); bucatini with a ragout of autumn vegetables, mushrooms and chestnuts (£9); and Squid ink spaghetti with a sauce of sardines, garlic, sweet peppers and tomato (£13).
Snacks will come in the form of olives; rosemary, rock salt, tomato and garlic focaccia; and crostini, while starters will include vitello tonnato.
“It would be fair to say that I have spent my career to date cooking a certain kind of ingredient at a certain kind of price point,” says Howard,
“I’ve loved it all, and continue to do so, but it is exciting however to have a project that can be delivered without compromise, at a price point that is wholly accessible to all. The fact that pasta is the medium is the icing on the cake and with the fantastic team we have in place the goal is simple - to bring pleasure to fellow Londoners by sharing authentic pasta dishes in a relaxed fun environment.”
The dining room will have an open central kitchen and a neutral colour palette with stone-coloured walls, oversized rattan light shades, and olive-green mosaic tiles designed ‘to evoke a warm and comfortable Italian trattoria’.
Howard launched OTTO in May 2021 as a London-based delivery business based out of a kitchen in south west London.
