Padella.

Padella

The cacio e pepe here has butter in it and uses parmesan or pecorino or a mix, which Tim Siadatan knows is heresy in Rome and says so outright: I'm not pretending to be making the Roman version (Country & Town House).

Why go

Tim Siadatan and Jordan Frieda opened Trullo in Islington in 2010 and this in Borough Market in 2016, with a single idea: pasta only, made on site, priced so you could eat it often. Siadatan's own account of the intent has not softened in ten years. "We were fed up with the fact that, in England, pasta was sold everywhere, it might have been affordable, but it wasn't very good." He came up through a Jamie Oliver apprenticeship he applied for at fifteen.

The menu is eight seasonal dishes (Borough Market). Two of them have never moved. The pappardelle with beef shin ragu is the one people come for, and Siadatan says he has tried removing it: I have tried taking it off the menu before, and we get an insane amount of complaints! Sometimes, you've just got to respect a signature dish, that's been created by customers. The rest turns with the year, and when he was asked what was on he named summer girolles, seared with garlic, parsley, lemon and porcini stock, wrapped round fettuccine.

The MICHELIN Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 United Kingdom guide, bands it one of four on price, and files it under a category worth reading twice: Worth Queueing For (MICHELIN Guide).

Order this / avoid

• Order: pappardelle with beef shin ragu, because ten years of customers have voted and the kitchen gave in. Pici cacio e pepe, for the butter argument. Then whatever the seasonal dish is, which is the part of the menu that moves. Sit at the kitchen counter if there is space.
• Avoid: arriving at one o'clock and hoping. There are no reservations at this site at all; join the virtual queue on the app before you leave. Do not bring more than six, because this address caps the group and points bigger tables at Shoreditch or Soho.

What locals & experts say

• The MICHELIN Guide, 2026: Bib Gourmand, price band one of four, Italian, and filed under Worth Queueing For.4
• Tim Siadatan, chef-founder, to Country & Town House, September 2025, on the dish that runs the place: Even on a hot day, pappardelle beef shin will sell more than anything else, which I still find bananas. And on the cacio e pepe: Ours has parmesan or pecorino or a mix... And then we add some butter in, which for Romans is sacrosanct... I'm very respectful and conscious to Roman friends, I'm not pretending to be making the Roman version.3
• The same interview, honest about how it took off: one of the reasons Padella Borough Market was a hit was because it became a social media trend. That played a huge part in why we made such a splash.3
• Borough Market's own trader record: The pasta is all freshly made on site, passersby can watch it being rolled out by hand in the window of the restaurant.2
• No critic has reviewed this address in anything reachable, which for a restaurant this famous is worth saying out loud. Every judgment above is a guide, a market listing or the founder himself.

Good to know

• Where: 6 Southwark Street SE1 1TQ, on the London Bridge side of Borough Market, next to the Borough High Street tube exit.
• The queue is the system: no reservations. Scan the QR code at the door or join remotely on the Dojo app. The lunch queue opens at 11am for tables from 11.30, and remotely from 11:45. Dinner opens at 16:30 for tables from 17:00, and remotely from 17:15. Speak to a host if you have no smartphone.
• Groups: six maximum at this site. Larger parties go to Shoreditch or Soho.
• Timing: roughly 11:30 to 10pm Monday to Wednesday, to 10:30pm Thursday to Saturday, and to 9pm on Sunday, with a break between lunch and dinner service.
• The room: two floors, kitchen counter dining, and a small amount of seating outside.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, Southwark, inspected 2 June 2026, FHRSID 879163, with points lost only on hygiene procedure and structure.5
• Sites: three. This is Borough Market, the original, 2016. Shoreditch at 1 Phipp Street EC2A 4PS opened in 2020 and holds its own hygiene record. Soho opened in spring 2026. The queue rule and the group cap here are specific to this address.
• If you want to cook it: Siadatan published Padella: Iconic Pasta at Home through Bloomsbury on 11 September 2025.

Verdict

should-visit — Rearrange the afternoon, and start the queue from home. Padella opened in Borough Market in 2016 doing one thing: a short menu of eight seasonal pastas, made on site and hand-rolled in the window, at a price the MICHELIN Guide bands at one of four while giving it a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 UK guide. The guide's own tag for it is 'Worth Queueing For', which is unusually direct. Tim Siadatan, who opened Trullo with Jordan Frieda in 2010 and came up through a Jamie Oliver apprenticeship at fifteen, says the intent has not moved: 'We wanted to create a single item menu with pasta where it was affordable, it was quick and it was really high quality.' Two dishes have been on since the first service. The pappardelle with beef shin ragu still outsells everything, and he is honest that he has tried to take it off and been shouted down. The pici cacio e pepe is the more interesting plate for a cook, because it is deliberately not the Roman version: parmesan or pecorino or a mix, plus butter, which he calls sacrosanct to Romans and then explains why he does it anyway. That is a kitchen with a position rather than a copy. It stops short of the top rung because nobody in the registry has reviewed this address, because the queue is a real tax on an evening, and because a brand on its third London site is a different proposition from the room that opened in 2016.