A new menu accompanied the launch, inspired by Franco Taruschio, the legend who ran the iconic Walnut Tree restaurant and who now runs a cookery school in Marche, Italy. The Spaghetti House chefs visited Taruschio last autumn, where they shopped in the markets, cooked with the freshest ingredients, and returned with a renewed passion and inspiration for the new menu. We sampled a few of the new dishes and especially liked the olives ascolan, (meat stuffed olives) and the spicy raviolini pomodoro e peperoncino (meat filled ravioli with a chilli and tomato sauce).

The new restaurant is designed in a contemporary and retro style with a huge stone pizza oven and high tables evoking the way many people eat out in Italy. The founders however, were keen for the design of the new restaurant to stay true to Spaghetti House’s traditional roots. Stefana Lavarini, daughter of the co-founder Simone Lavarini, (who is now in his eighties and still visits each of the Spaghetti House restaurants each week), explained that they, “took inspiration from the first restaurant which opened in Goodge Street, W1, to create an interior that is sleek and contemporary, but which also shows our heritage”.

Somehow, the prospect of the Spaghetti House still being owned by Italians or even the same co-founders who opened the first Spaghetti House restaurant in 1959, had not occurred to me and I was pleasantly surprised when I saw so many Italians at the launch. The celebration felt like a family party with the amount of hugging and kissing that was going on but also reflected the true emotion and genuine passion and pride that the owners felt about their business. In a world dominated by the large corporate groups who own the myriad other Italian restaurant chains, it was refreshing to learn that the Spaghetti House is indeed owned by an authentic Italian family.