Manteca

Chris Leach and David Carter (Smokestak) opened Manteca as a Heddon Street, Mayfair pop-up in 2017 and moved through several sites before settling permanently on Curtain Road in Shoreditch in October 2021 — proper salumeria, open wood-fired pasta kitchen, a counter at the back where the chefs cure their own coppa, lardo and 'nduja. The cooking is unfussy and aggressive — pig-skin ragu, ox-heart spiedini, brown-butter cacio e pepe with cuttlefish. The room is plain — concrete, a few wooden chairs, exposed pipes — which suits the food. The 2026 Michelin Guide carries the Bib Gourmand. This is the Italian restaurant Londoners take their out-of-town food friends to. Bookings open one month in advance and disappear within hours.