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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Lifestyle
Josh Barrie

Knife Edge: LA's Michelin-starred Pasta Bar comes to London in collaboration with Gordon Ramsay

Pasta Bar: the LA restaurant has held a Michelin star since 2021 - (Pasta Bar)

One of LA’s most popular restaurants, the Michelin-starred Pasta Bar, is coming to London for the first time in collaboration with Gordon Ramsay.

Pasta Bar — officially titled as “Pasta|Bar”, annoyingly — will set up at Pizza East in Shoreditch for a two-week residency in October, taking over the iconic Tea Building after a string of international pop-ups.

The husband-and-wife chef duo Phillip Frankland Lee and Margarita Kallas-Lee opened their Los Angeles-based restaurant five years ago, soon earning plaudits thanks to their omakase-style Italian dining experience.

Dishes at the LA restaurant include king crab raviolo with fermented pineapple and macadamia nuts, Iberico pork cavatelli with chile passilla and mole, and Australian lamb loin with merguez sausage, cipollini and cherries. Michelin inspectors praised the restaurant’s “wonderfully engaging staff”, the “delectable, hyper-local items” and the “eclectic cuisine that travels beyond the borders of Italian tradition”.

The concept will be planted into the far more casual Pizza East, a relaxed setting launched by the Soho House Group a decade ago and bought by Gordon Ramsay Restaurants in 2023.

And the Pasta Bar team is to work with Ramsay’s executive chef brigade to create a “truly unique menu” for diners, one that is being kept under wraps for now. Dinner will be à la carte or as a four-course tasting menu (recommended), a first for Pizza East, alongside wines and a cocktail menu designed for the collaboration. Prices are yet to be confirmed.

(Pasta Bar)

Ramsay said: “I am so delighted that Phillip Frankland Lee and his wife Margarita, from LA’s very cool, Michelin-starred Pasta Bar are heading to London for a unique collaboration with my team at Pizza East.

“What a pop up this will be! I cannot wait to try their delicious menu and the whole Ramsay family will be first in line when it opens next Monday.”

Pasta Bar usually serves a ten-course menu in LA, one that has earned the restaurant a Michelin star for five consecutive years, with the first awarded just a year after opening.

The opportunity came about after executive chef Frankland Lee was invited to appear on Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars, a new food show on Apple TV produced by Ramsay’s global restaurant group.

Frankland Lee said: “After filming Knife Edge, collaborating with Gordon Ramsay Restaurants feels like the perfect next chapter for Margarita and me.

“Bringing our Michelin-starred Pasta Bar to Pizza East lets us trade ideas with a world-class brigade and cook for one of the most vibrant dining cities in the world. I’m honoured to share a kitchen with Chef Ramsay.”

The Pizza East x Pasta Bar pop-up runs from October 6-25. Reservations and walk-ins accepted. 56 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6JJ, pizzaeast.com

Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars arrives on Apple TV+ on October 10.

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