Pasto’s Grill

Order the gnocchi at Pasto's Grill and it arrives in a shallot and gorgonzola cream, not the red sauce an Italian grill's name might lead you to expect. That one substitution says most of what matters about the kitchen on the Wellington Road South side of London: it works inside familiar Italian territory but rarely settles for the shorthand version of it. The menu reads as a full Italian grill — antipasti, pasta, thin-crust pizza and panzerotti, oven-and-grill mains, vegan plates, lunch sandwiches, and a children's menu — and the breadth is the whole idea. A table here does not have to agree on one thing before it sits down.

The opening moves are unfussy and built for sharing. Calamari Fritti comes flash-fried with a garlic aioli instead of buried under sauce, and the Bruschetta arrives on toasted garlic crostini with Parmesan and a balsamic reduction. Then the pasta, which is the centre of gravity. The Chicken & Sausage Penne is the clearest read on the house style — Italian sausage and grilled chicken with roasted red peppers in a tomato-basil rosé sauce, hearty without tipping into heavy. Around it sits a deeper bench: Butternut Squash Ravioli in a chipotle cream with spinach, a Seafood Linguine of shrimp, scallops, and clams in a lobster cream sauce, and a Shrimp Diavolo that carries real heat.

The thin-crust pizzas run in the same direction — composed rather than simply loaded. The Quattro Stagioni keeps it classic with prosciutto, artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives, and roasted red peppers; the San Michelle layers pesto, grilled chicken, spinach, and goat cheese; the Santa Suzanna goes frankly sweet, pairing prosciutto and pears with almonds, goat cheese, and a honey drizzle over white sauce. Panzerotti hold down the folded end of the same dough. It is a pizza list that rewards reading past the first familiar name on it.

Past the pasta and pizza, the grill section gives the menu its second act: a ten-ounce AAA Alberta strip plated as steak frites, a half rack of baby back ribs under a spicy honey-garlic glaze, an oven-baked filet of salmon in a creamy Dijon dill. The vegan list is not a token gesture either. House-made plant-based meatballs of mushroom, chickpea, and soy crumb come with gluten-free pasta, and the Vegan Pizza can be built on vegan, gluten-free, or regular crust. The breadth points to a kitchen organized around the table rather than a single specialty — one diner can stay with a familiar penne while another orders steak, a third eats entirely plant-based, and nobody is left negotiating for a side plate.

That flexibility shapes how Pasto's gets used. Reservations sit up front, which suits the date nights, family meals, and group dinners the menu is plainly built for, and a dedicated children's menu keeps the youngest guests from being an afterthought. A weekday Social Hour runs from three to five, Monday through Friday, dine-in only — bruschetta, calamari, ribs, and aperitivo-style drinks turning a late afternoon into a lighter reason to come in. Pasto's has worked this stretch of South London since 1999, and the six-day schedule, dark only on Sundays, reads like a dining room settled into its regulars rather than one chasing a crowd.

None of this is showy. The flourishes are the kind a working Italian kitchen accumulates over decades — a gorgonzola cream here, a lobster reduction there, a chipotle note folded into a squash ravioli. What Pasto's gives South London is range that actually holds together: a pasta night, a steak dinner, a plant-based order, and a quiet weekday drink all live on one menu, and the familiar dishes are cooked with enough specificity that none of them read as generic.