Bucatini, maccheroni, mafalda and paccheri, all made fresh daily in a 1960s Sicilian-style pasta bar in Soho
Pasta is the whole reason 27 Old Compton Street exists, so World Pasta Day 2026, on Sunday 25 October, is a big date in our calendar. We are an independent pasta bar styled after 1960s Sicily, and all our fresh pasta is made daily, then cooked to order in the open kitchen upstairs. The doors open at midday that Sunday and stay open until 11pm, which leaves room for lunch, an early dinner or a late bowl before the week starts again. Walk-ins are welcome all day.
A tour of Italy's pasta shapes
Our menu travels round Italy one shape at a time. Bucatini are thick spaghetti with a hole running through the middle, and ours come cacio e pepe, tossed with pecorino and black pepper the Roman way. Maccheroni are short tubes that hold on to our amatriciana and vodka sauces. Mafalda, long ribbons with frilly edges named after an Italian princess, carry a beef ragu slow-cooked in red wine. Paccheri, the wide tubes of Naples, come with smoked chicken, mushrooms and a creamy parmesan sauce, and conchiglie shells scoop up a slow-cooked octopus ragu.
The plate to order on World Pasta Day
If you only order one thing, make it the black squid ink lobster ravioli. The pasta is coloured jet black with squid ink and filled with lobster meat, then finished with tomato and basil, and it is the most beautiful plate we send out of the kitchen. For something earthier, the mushroom and truffle lasagne layers fresh pasta with creamy bechamel and a truffle mushroom sauce.
Leave room for the sweet gnocchi filled with pistachio paste, which arrive warm and fluffy and are made for sharing.
Eating at a tavola calda
We run as a tavola calda, which means hot table in Italian. In Italy these are the places people drop into for a plate of fresh, hot food without a long wait, and 27 follows the same idea. Every dish is cooked the minute you order it and brought to the table fast, so it arrives piping hot. Upstairs you can watch the kitchen at work, and downstairs the wine cellar holds an all-Italian list chosen to go with the pasta we make every morning.
Where the day comes from
World Pasta Day started at a gathering of pasta makers in Rome in 1995, where they agreed pasta deserved a yearly celebration. This year the celebrations in Italy grow into a whole World Pasta Week, held in Parma for the first time. World Pasta Day is on 25 October every year, the day to share a plate of pasta, cook a favourite recipe or try a shape you have never eaten before. At 27 we make that easy, with a menu built around fresh pasta and a kitchen that cooks it to order. For more inspiration, read our list of 10 must-try Italian pasta dishes.
Sunday 25 October at 27 Old Compton Street
If you are celebrating World Pasta Day in London, our pasta bar sits on Old Compton Street in the middle of Soho, with Leicester Square the closest Tube station and Tottenham Court Road a short stroll away. Walk-ins are welcome all day on Sunday, and a table for two runs for up to an hour, which leaves time to explore the West End afterwards.