Bianchis Group closes its original Bristol site

Founded by Ben Harvey and Dominic Borel in 2016, Pasta Loco was the city’s first specialist fresh pasta restaurant and laid the foundation for five further restaurants. 

Bianchis Group’s Pasta Ripiena, Bianchis Restaurant, Pizza Bianchi, Cotto and Centrale all continue to trade as normal. 

Writing in an Instagram post, the pair said they had initially been in favour of the council’s plan to pedestrianise Cotham Hill but that project had been “poorly managed, terribly communicated and littered with awful decision making” and that the impending removal of outdoor trading space had been “the death knell for us”. 

The site has already ceased trading with the group using an insolvency company to help with the “final matters of our business”. 

"We would like to thank all of our customers. It’s your commitment to us that has kept us going, day in, day out. You have supported our business, eaten numerous plates of home-made pasta in our restaurant and above all cared about our dilemma," the post reads. 

We want to thank our phenomenal staff who have worked hard to reflect our mission and values as a company and have turned up every day despite the whirl wind of uncertainty that our industry is in. Pasta Loco has been a joyous ride from the start and will always be our first love, it’s hard to walk away but we know in our hearts that the time is right."