Notto co-founder Julian Dyer has set his sights on establishing the pasta bar concept as a prominent high street brand.
Created by Dyer and Michelin-starred chef Phil Howard in 2021, the brand has quickly grown from a delivery service to two central London sites.
The menu focuses on freshly made pasta, with sauces made from seasonal, high quality ingredients, positioned at affordable price points - a set lunch menu costs £19.50 for a starter, pasta main and dessert.
“I’d like to think that it could be a high-street brand. I think we can do that, but we will always keep our integrity. We will always keep our quality. That will never change,” Dyer tells MCA.
The Notto restaurant business model centres around building clusters of restaurants around a central restaurant and production kitchen, ensuring quality and consistency of product.
Notto Pasta home delivery was launched across London in 2021 delivering 8 seasonal pasta dishes, and launched its flagship pasta bar at 199 Piccadilly, followed a year later with the opening of a second site on Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.
Today, it has plans to expand across London, and venture further afield. It is currently in the process of building its third site in South Kensington, and at circa 130 covers, it will be the most ambitious restaurant so far, nearly double the size of the first two.
From there, Dyer says Notto will look to open a fourth site in the Spitalfields market area and is eyeing further central London locations including Marylebone, High Street Kensington, and Soho.
If successful, he is keen to build the brand outside of London, and envisages further clusters in cities such as Manchester and Liverpool.
“It is definitely a model to roll out, without a doubt. If we can keep that quality, which we should be able to with a central kitchen and the professional team of people that we’ve got.”
Having, in 2022, found the former Costa Coffee unit in Piccadilly, with an unused basement area, the pair saw the potential for this system early on.
“Phil and I were looking for a site. We did a couple of pop-ups with the delivery business, so we knew it was successful,” Julian recounts.
“Under the circumstances, you would never take a production kitchen in Piccadilly, but we got very favourable terms because, at that time no one was buying restaurants.
“We built the production kitchen for our first 3-4 restaurants. Currently we deliver daily to our second restaurant on an electric three-wheeler bike every morning at 8am.”
This model not only allows for scale but retains the high-quality that Notto is committed to. It is the simplicity of ingredients that allows for the brand’s accessible price points, adds Dyer.
Its latest menu has an entry point of £9.50- a Tagliatelle cooke with chicken stock, farmhouse butter, and tarragon; ”Those ingredients are very simple. It has just got a great margin.”
He adds, “The things that go with pasta generally are slow cooked. You don’t use the cuts of meat that you would for fast cooking. And you’re dealing with a lot of vegetables as well- so the ingredients don’t have to be expensive.”
“We have a white Dorset white crab meat pasta and Phil is very generous with the crab, and that that might be £25.00. So we do have two ranges. But our four entry pastas that we will have our next menu are going to be under £13.00.”
Behind this strategy, Dyer acknowledges a shift in the wider market for Italian dining, with an influx of high-quality pasta concepts thriving, whilst mid-market Italian restaurants may be falling behind.
He adds that many chains have lost their way, relying on pre-made ingredients rather than freshly crafted dishes, which discerning customers no longer tolerate.
“I think that is something that people won’t put up with anymore. And also it’s the price as well. People are very price sensitive.”
He emphasised that at Notto, everything is made in-house, from the pasta to the bread baked twice daily, ensuring a quality dining experience that stands out in the market.
“The whole outlook on this was to try and be the nicest tasting food in any fresh pasta restaurant. If we can do that, we’ll win the race. It’s really about the experience, the food, the ingredients.”
