Tag: pasta restaurant

Flour and grape pork shoulder tortelloni

Flour And Grape – Bermondsey, SE1

bakesbymegukLeave a comment

After a bit of a quiet period, I’m back! I’ve been away on a pretty big holiday, for which food updates will be coming very soon… But in the meantime, I thought I’d do a little review of one of the lovely restaurants I’ve been to recently in London. It’ll come as no surprise to you that my partner for this meal was the Ros (as in @rosontour). We spotted Flour & Grape on Tik Tok recently. We’ve been stacking up a list of Tik Tok finds to make our way through, and this was the first we ticked off! I definitely think we picked a good place to start.

Neither of us had really explored Bermondsey before, so we spent the hour before F&G opened just wandering around the streets & into all the cute little shops we found. Can confirm this is a lovely way to spend a Sunday. As F&G is a no-booking situation (you queue through the Walk Up app), we stationed ourselves at a cafe with a view of the F&G front door to make sure we were among the first people to get inside. That is true pasta dedication. We both had an iced chai and stared at the door (I’m not joking). The iced chai was actualy a lovely surprise – one of the best we’d both ever had! As soon as the restaurant opened we were up, I think we were the third table to be seated.

After looking at the menu we strategised – do we do starters and a couple of pastas, do we do all pasta, do we do smaller starters, pasta and a dessert? We were both on the same page – let’s get all pasta, and let’s get 4 pastas (everyone needs a friend like Ros). We got 2 rounds of 2 pastas, to make it feel like a proper meal and less like we’d just ordered 4 mains between 2…

First up we got the pork shoulder tortelloni and the fennel sausage ragu with gigli. I am not being dramatic when I say these were absolute perfection – and I’m not just saying because I was wildly hungover and starving. The tortelloni (spoiler alert) ended up being our favourite of the night – the filling was purely slow roasted pork, it was so tender and so meaty in flavour. Tossed in a simple sage butter – this was absolutely incredible. Don’t get me wrong though, that ragu was also insanely special. Again, very meaty and buttery, but with the addition of the freshness from some greens.

Flour and grape pork shoulder tortelloni
Pork shoulder tortelloni with sage butter
Flour and Grape fennel sausage ragu gigli
Fennel sausage ragu with gigli

We polished up both plates and got our next pasta course – the carbonara and the preserved truffle taglierini. Again, both were fabulous! The carbonara came with an extra egg yolk on top to mix in which made it even more decadent, with the salty, meaty, crunchy little pieces of guanciale. A perfect example of a carbonara. We found the truffle pasta really interesting and quite subtly different to your standard creamy truffle pasta. The preserved truffle gave it a little more of a tang which cut through the richness. Of course, we polished off these 2 plates too (apart from 1 mouthful I could not stomach…).

flour and grape carbonara
Spaghetti carbonara with an egg yolk and crispy guanciale
flour and grape preserved truffle taglierini
Preserved truffle taglierini

All in all, this was a really fantastic meal and it has definitely cemented itself as one of our pasta favourites. Every dish was fantastic – nothing disappointed! But for educational purposes, so you know what to get when you visit, we’ve kindly ranked the dishes from our favourite to least favourite.

Meg’s Rankings

  1. Pork shoulder tortelloni
  2. Carbonara
  3. Sausage ragu
  4. Truffle taglierini

Ros’ Rankings

  1. Pork shoulder tortelloni
  2. Carbonara
  3. Truffle taglierini
  4. Sausage ragu

We both definitely recommend a trip to Flour & Grape, absolutely worth a queue! If you do take a trip, let me know what you think in the comments!

Find them at 214 Bermondsey St, SE1 3TQ

N'Duja Lasagne (Tom's Pasta)

Toms Pasta – Hackney Downs, E8

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I took a trip to this restaurant on the recommendation of a friend who works there. She had absolutely rave reviews for the place and after a quick scroll of their insta I was hooked. Tom’s Pasta is unsurprisingly headed up by a chef named Tom, who mans the kitchen on his own churning out starters, mains and desserts for a packed restaurant. I was so impressed he kept up with all the orders on his own and that he never skimped on the quality. Again unsurprisingly, Tom’s Pasta at heart is a pasta restaurant, specialising in lasagne! In my experience you very rarely see a lasagne on a menu, so I was really excited to try these out. Tom started the business as a lasagne delivery service by bike (absolutely genius), and has moved into a restaurant space in Hackney Downs Studios, right next to Hackney Downs park. This is a really great space, part of the larger creative studios complex. Tom’s Pasta is in the downmarket building, which also houses All Good Beer who have a really great selection of beers & wines to have with your meal. There is also a cafe/bakery in this space open during the day, Brunswick East, which I haven’t tried. Anyway, back to Tom’s Pasta – and let’s talk food.

The menu changes almost daily, although there are some seemingly staple dishes including the pork & beef lasagne, n’duja lasagne and the genovese lasagne. To start, we ordered the whole starter menu – 2x burrata with sourdough, the bruschetta and the meat & cheese plate. All of this was fantastic. The burrata came very simply drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper and good quality sourdough. The meat & cheese plate came with more burrata, mortadella and some cured ham. The bruschetta was crisp, fresh and garlicky. What’s not to love?!

L: Burrata & sourdough, M: meat & cheese plate, R: bruschetta

For main I got the pork & beef lasagne and no word of a lie this was probably the best lasagne I’ve ever had. Maybe better than the one I make and that’s saying something because I really back myself. Firstly, it comes hidden under a mountain of cheese which is a great start. Secondly, the lasagne itself uses the most delicious, rich and deeply flavoured ragu – you can really tell the time and effort gone into it and it absolutely pays off. Thirdly, the bechamel is soooo thick and so creamy. Fourthly, pasta. Again an absolutely winning combination. My friends all got the n’duja which is very similar to the pork & beef but with added n’duja. They were kind enough to let me try a bite and that, too, was wonderful. No surprise really that combining one beautiful thing (that lasagne) with another (n’duja) makes another beautiful thing. We also got a 3 sides of the buttery garlic bread which was a new addition to the menu that day. Think a beautiful, thick slice of sourdough drenched in garlic butter and topped with cheese – as you can imagine, it was a great great thing.

L: Pork & beef lasagne, R: n’duja lasagne

We rounded off the meal with the lasagne of the dessert world – tiramisu. Yet again, Tom is giving me a run for my money as I think his tiramisu might be better than my own which, again, is saying something because I back myself hard. We got a huge slab in a bowl. First thing that struck me was how yellow the cream was, I assume owing to the use of some really good eggs. It was rich from the cream but light from the sponge, with the perfect amount of coffee flavour that wasn’t too overpowering. Another triumph.

L: Buttery garlic bread, R: tiramisu

If you can’t tell already, I’m such a huge fan of Tom’s Pasta. All the food was incredible, really up my street – Italian food done super well. I was also so impressed that Tom could do all this by himself in the kitchen, including serving a table of 18 plus the rest of the restaurant. The vibe in the place is great too, very relaxed and everyone who works there is super fun (I’m definitely biased as my mate works there, but she’s a lot of fun I promise). I really recommend a trip to this place, I’ll definitely be returning to try the other lasagnes, the aubergine parm and I’ve seen some tagliatelle knocking about on their insta too. Let me know in the comments how you find it if you take a trip!

Find them at 17 Amhurst Terrace, London E8 2BT