Apparently, the average Italian eats around 27 kilos of pasta every year, and to be honest it feels like we’re not too far behind. We could lament all day about it – silky ribbons of perfection in real, proper carbonara are almost heaven-sent. And the weighty feel of a slab of homemade lasagne slowly bending a serving spatula is a sheer delight.
With over 350 shapes of pasta, life can sometimes be a little overwhelming, but when a bowl of orecchiette starts making its way from kitchen to table, drenched in deep tomato sauce everything just feels right in the world.
Manchester is chock-full of distinguished pasta masters, so here is the rundown of our favourites (and don’t forget to use our search to find even more pasta perfection in Manchester and beyond) :
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Book Now Northern Quarter
Sicilian NQ
Located in the Northern Quarter, this friendly neighbourhood bistro and bar is the place to avanti if it’s a taste of traditional Sicily you fancy – from authentic street food snacks through to big plates of pasta to desserts and holiday memory gelato, eat in or take away.
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Book Now Altrincham
Rigatoni’s Altrincham
Rigatoni’s is a bustling 25-seater Southern Italian pasta kitchen at the top of Shaws Road in Altrincham. Their rotating blackboard menu combines both their deep-rooted southern Italian heritage and their own creativity. They say that their simple pledge is to put their hearts and minds into every plate they serve.
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Greater Manchester
A Tavola
A Tavola has an offbeat charm. Don’t be put off by the exterior. Sicilian delights await within.
Inside, it is a bit of a squeeze. Intimate, as they say. It will be even more of a squeeze after you’ve stuffed yourself silly on authentic Sicilian food. And the food is the thing.
From the look of the place, you might be expecting a few simple pizzas and not much more but you’d be wrong. Pizzas are most certainly on the menu but there are all sorts of dishes, from Sicilian street food to decadently alcoholic tiramisu. What links them is the quality of the ingredients, with many shipped over from respected Italian suppliers.
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Book Now Levenshulme
Cibus
Once a stall at Levy Market, then a pop-up pizzeria above Fred’s Ale House, Cibus took baby steps to get to where it is today; a fully-fledged and much-praised Italian restaurant and bar on Levenshulme high street, and the winner of The Good Food Guide’s award for Best Local Restaurant North West 2024.
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Prestwich
Lupo
Patiscerria and small-batch Italian hand-roasted coffee – that’s the name of the game at the award-winning Lupo Caffe Italiano.
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Northern Quarter
The Pasta Factory
The group of friends behind The Pasta Factory’s story originally hail from Turin in the northern region of Piedmont, so this is the place for authentic Italian food full of flavour, with dishes created from scratch using only the best fresh ingredients in season.
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Book Now Northern Quarter
Salvi’s Manchester Northern Quarter
Salvi’s NQ is the baby of what claims to be Manchester’s first independent Neapolitan restaurant, and if traditional, authentic southern Italian cuisine is on your mind, this is definitely a place to sniff out.
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Green Quarter
The Sparrows
The Sparrows serves up a variety of fresh, handmade continental pasta and Central and Eastern European dumplings in an unexpectedly airy space underneath a railway archway in Red Bank.
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Salford
Vero Moderno
Another fab addition to the clutch of good, independent Italian restaurants in the city is Vero Moderno. Situated on the regenerated Chapel Street just inside Salford, it joins Salvi’s, Pasta Factory, and Lupo on our list of ‘proper’ Italians which swerve the standard carbonara and bolognese in favour of something a little more considered.