‘Experimental’ Pizzeria Pivots to Pasta [Updated]

Updated 5p.m., 9.08.2019 with confirmation, further menu details, a peek inside, and opening date.

Zia Lucia — a pizzeria known for what it calls “experimental doughs” — will diversify this summer, opening its first fresh pasta restaurant in Islington. It will open on 31 August.

Berto, per a jobs post online, is the company’s “first fresh pasta restaurant.” According to the cited post code, it will open either next door to, or on the site of, the existing Zia Lucia restaurant on Holloway Road in Islington. It is scheduled to open in May 2019 “offering different types of flours” in its pastas. It will include an open kitchen, a large counter, and space for 40-plus covers.

Pastas will include egg tagliatelle and pappardelle, vegan pici, gnocchi, and filled pasta like ravioli. “Just as Zia Lucia uses different flours to create four signature pizza doughs, Berto will serve a selection of pasta doughs made from traditional, wholemeal and gluten-free flours,” the restaurant said.

Owners Claudio Vescovo and Gianluca D’Angelo have named the restaurant after their friend, described as an “expert pasta maker, friend and teacher, Piero – or ‘Berto’ as they call him.” Piero (or Berto) has owned a pasta shop in Ronciglione, just north of Rome, for over 25 years, where he’s researched antique flours, tools, and recipes. He’ll be in place to train the staff at Berto, the restaurant.

caterer.com

Berto’s logo features an artist’s impression of a man with a triple quiff, round sunglasses, and moustache; the colour palette appears to draw inspiration from wheat. It also includes the strapline: “Pasta - Roll With It.”

Zia Lucia, whose charcoal and “green vegetable dough” bases have been a hit, has opened three sites in the last two and half years — as well as Islington, the brand has a site in Hammersmith and at the Boxpark alt-shopping centre in Wembley.

The jobs post includes further details about the wider business’ plans for the future. It says that, in addition to the Berto site in Islington, another restaurant will open in June this year. In total, over the next four years, it will open five restaurants.

Even when the restaurant industry is experiencing as many closures as is it is new openings so far this year, there a few things more certain than pizza and pasta to cut through Londoners’ fickle tastes.

Berto, 155 Holloway Road, N7 8LX
Soft launch from 31 August — 6 September with 50 percent off food.

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