Pasta Evangelists opens Chelsea restaurant with classes, wine and cocktails

Pasta Evangelists is opening a Chelsea restaurant on Fulham Road on 18 May, and the move says as much about access as it does about pasta. The new site will seat 56 guests indoors, add outdoor tables in warmer months, and shift the brand further from delivery-first convenience into a polished room built for a proper night out.

That matters because Pasta Evangelists has always sold speed and freshness, not fuss. The Chelsea menu stays close to the dishes that built the following: Carbonara of Dreams, Lobster and Prawn Ravioli, Truffle Cacio e Pepe and Ragù alla Bolognese. The drinks list goes further than the brand’s early counter-service model, with Italian wines and a curated cocktail selection that make the room feel like a neighborhood restaurant, not just a pickup point with plates.

The bigger change arrives in June, when the Chelsea site starts hosting Pasta Evangelists’ pasta-making experiences. Those will include hands-on classes, regional tasting sessions built around Rome and Tuscany, tiramisu workshops and wine tastings with bottomless Prosecco. That push into classes and tastings turns the restaurant into a place where customers can eat, learn and linger, which is a much stronger proposition than a quick bowl of fresh pasta on the way home.

It is also the latest step in a business that has already moved well beyond its original cook-at-home setup. Founded in 2016 by Alessandro Savelli, Finn Lagun and Chris Rennoldson, Pasta Evangelists opened its first counter-only restaurant in Harrods Dining Hall in Knightsbridge in 2021, after Barilla took a majority stake in January that year through BLU1877. The company has since expanded through sites including Market Halls Victoria and franchise openings in Richmond and Greenwich.

Pasta Evangelists says it has served more than 1 million customers and runs a 47,000 sq ft factory that can produce more than 50 tonnes of fresh pasta a week, scale that helps explain why the brand is now talking like a hospitality operator as much as a food business. Trade press reported in 2025 that it wanted more than 15 restaurants open or in development by the end of that year, while another plan called for 100 UK restaurants over five years, backed by more than £30m in investment and as many as 1,500 jobs.

Chelsea looks like the clearest sign yet of where this is heading. It is not just a neighborhood convenience play, and it is not quite a special-occasion splurge either. It is Pasta Evangelists testing whether fresh artisan pasta can own a more polished, dine-in format in London, and the brand is betting that people will come for the carbonara, stay for the wine, and return for the classes.