An award-winning Italian restaurant chain in London, known for its fresh, handmade pasta, with locations in Covent Garden, Golden Square, Soho, Borough Yards, Kensington, and City.
Will Ellner is the co-founder of Bancone, a highly regarded pasta-focused restaurant group in London. He is known for establishing and operating successful dining experiences centered around fresh, artisanal pasta.
Bancone is an award-winning London restaurant renowned for its fresh, handmade pasta, crafted daily. It offers a lively and casual dining experience across multiple locations in London, including Covent Garden, Golden Square, and Kensington. The restaurant focuses on high-quality Italian dishes at a reasonable price point.
Customers consistently praise the excellent fresh pasta and food quality, with the fried artichoke and silk handkerchief pasta often highlighted as standout dishes. Many find the pricing to be good value for London. However, common criticisms include inconsistent service, tables being too close together, and a sometimes loud atmosphere. Despite these points, the food quality often leads customers to express a desire to return.
Additional Details
Bancone has multiple locations across London, including Covent Garden, Golden Square, and Kensington. The restaurant charges for bread and filtered tap water, and a 15% service charge is typically added to the bill.
Bancone is open for lunch and dinner. The Covent Garden location operates Monday-Wednesday from 12 PM - 10 PM, Thursday-Saturday from 12 PM - 10:30 PM, and Sunday from 12 PM - 9:30 PM. Given the lively atmosphere and close tables, it might be less crowded during off-peak lunch hours.
Awards & Recognition
Award-winning fresh pasta
Voted one of London's Best Italian Pasta Restaurants
Discovered this little modern Italian place through Michelin’s bib gourmand and it largely lived up to expectations. We tried two pasta dishes including a signature silk handkerchief and a beef carmelle (toffee wrapper shaped pasta). The carmelle was absolutely excellent with its broth like gravy but is not one that feels like a traditional pasta sauce while the handkerchief is lighter on the sauce but would highly recommend both. Desserts were very good, especially the pistachio cannolo (not too sweet) but the absolute star was the artichoke antipasti. The specialty Negronis were a nice touch, though a tad small. Overall, excellent food and service.
Popped into Bancone Golden Square for lunch and it was excellent. Started with the fried artichoke head: absolutely delicious, crispy and perfectly seasoned.
We also had the tagliatelle with spicy pork and ’nduja (rich, spicy, very well balanced) and the mafalde with anchovy cream and jalapeño martini olive. Both pastas were cooked spot-on, generous portions, and full of bold, clean flavours.
Service was friendly and quick, the place has a nice lively, and the wine list offers some great options by the glass.
Really solid lunch in the middle of Soho. Great value for the quality. Will definitely return!
The food was nice but I wasn’t blown away.. I’d say the gnocchi was my favourite. The carbonara was decent but not sensational, which is what I wanted. Service was good, and I like the downstairs section it’s really nice for a dinner. I also didn’t love the starters but I do think pasta lovers would enjoy this spot.
We went to Bancone worried it would just be a trendy place and were really really surprised by the quality of the food!
We took the tuna tartare that was really good (but quite spicy)
Then i took the herwick hogget pappardelle and they were soooo good! I was really impressed by the taste.
My boyfriend took the beef caramelle: it was good but i would say less amazing than the pappardelle.
Then we took the fior di latte dessert and liked it.
The freshly made pasta we had was good , but other was okay. Service was good. We were seated in the lower level basement downstairs. We arrived with a small group of Asians already there. So just two groups. Then another group of Asians came down. Okay, then another with party of2. Getting peculiar. We joked about it then as we were finishing up another party of 2 and they were Asian as well. 6 out of 6. Call me paranoid , but comment your experience. Forgot to mention, the people on the ground level were non Asian decent. And plenty of room for other guests. Call me weird, but prove me wrong. That being said, I did like the food. 🥰.
