Red Pepper

Great service, delicious and authentic Italian food. The homemade pasta was outstanding, so was the dessert. Definitely stop by but reservations are recommended if you plan to come during typical dining hours because the place is tiny.

This is where your pasta and pizza don’t go wrong. They use fresh ingredients from Italy that get delivered daily right to their delicious kitchen. Highly recommended, Pizza Red Pepper my favourite dish.

I had the asparagus and white cheese pizza and was impressed with the amount of asparagus and the salty, chewy cheese texture. The crust also had a good mix of chewiness and firmness. My husband raved about the fresh bruschetta. I also had a prawn appetizer and while good, it was too expensive for the two small prawns on the dish.
The full two stars negated are for the crappy service. The Filipino waiter who seated us told us THREE times before he even handed us our menus that we had to leave the outside seating by 10pm. Ok fine, we got it. We ordered apps and then he disappeared so we had to flag another waiter to order our meals. He never came to refresh our waters which quickly ran dry, even though for the table NEXT to us, he had no issue servicing.
We complained at the end to another server who took our card– take heed the restaurant slyly adds an «optional» tip already to your bill. He apologized and we asked for the tip to be removed, which he duly complied.
We won’t be returning when this neighborhood is full of cute restaurants.

Red Pepper is our favourite neighbourhood joint. It is our go to place when we don’t know what we want and I don’t want to cook.
We don’t even need a menu. We get the same thing every time.
Focaccia.
Diavola Pizza.
Tiramisu.
Don’t waste your time on anything other than the pizza. We have never had good luck with their pasta or meat dishes. The pizzas are simple yet delicious and perfect to be split amongst 2 people.
Also, the bruschetta is fresh and a great appetizer if you are worried splitting a pizza isn’t enough.
Make a reservation. And be prepared to listen to the table next door’s conversation, as there is barely enough space to squeeze between the tables. We have heard bankers gripe about their 5 story apartments, couples break up, and scandals between friends. Just enjoy it. It’s part of the entertainment.

It is a cute Italian neighbourhood restaurant in principle bug it is hugely unpleasant because if owner and people who work there. Food is average to good but very strange atmosphere… I feel as if I should be appreciative of this opportunity to fine at the restaurant. There is a lady owner who is quite bossy — suspect she is the one who is setting the tone and the culture.
I live around the corner do I go there from time yo time — always tell myself, never again :-). Unless you just need an Italian walking distance from your home, don’t waste your time and money here… There are many other charming places…

Really good thin crust pizza! But the way they use ingredients is a little different than what I’m used to.
We ordered the Napoli, Melanzana, and Stagioni.
— Napoli (anchovies, olives, capers): Definitely not a fan of this. I found the pizza to be too salty, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the anchovies. The capers also come with the stem, which i found odd.
— Melanzana (aubergine, tomato, goat cheese): Super yummy! The chunks of cheese were really creamy, and the roasted aubergine was also good. Everything went together really well
— Stagioni (ham, mushroom, artichokes, olives): My favorite of the three! The ham is thin cut & not too salty, and the mushrooms have a really nice flavor.
Overall, I really liked how the pizzas. They don’t overload with tomato sauce or cheese, which is good with the thin crust. However, the toppings seemed kind of just added on top, rather than cooked in with the cheese, as they easily fell off as we were tearing apart the slices. Also, the olives are all whole and not pitted, so be careful!

The Red Pepper is a good Italian restaurant, but nothing special. Food tastes fine, but it was very crowded, narrow and busy when I was there.
Actually, I was a bit disappointed, perhaps because I had a very delicious pizza somewhere else just a few days before
I guess it’s not really the kind of restaurant you really enjoy just being there. But it’s okay if you’re hungry and want some average Italian food.

Great little italian spot in Maida Vale. I just love Formosa street — so many great restaurants and shops in a really tiny little street.
Had the homemade tagliatelle which was simple and delicious. Great place to take your special someone out for a great meal where you don’t need to get all dressed up for.

Worth coming into the area for. quiet and nicely out of the way. beautiful little Formosa street. great Pizza… all you «Shall we eat at Garfunkles» crowd take a step up the eloquent ladder and recognise taste… Red Pepper will show you there is a life beyond oxford circus’s crappy pizza joints.

Bring a date here. It’s intimate and out-​of-​the-​way in Maida Vale and will make you look like a hero in her eyes. And let’s face it — you are a hero. And after a full day of fighting crime, a quiet Italian dinner with a trusty companion is the special of the day.
With the right ambience and a bottle of wine, the Italian food makes everything that much better. Each dish was different and done up very well, though I will say that the pizzas were especially good. Share a pizza with a pasta dish of your choice and you can’t go wrong.
It has been a while since I have settled down for a meal here. Let’s face it — Maida Vale is a far journey from my usual Islington stomping grounds. But if I were in the area, I wouldn’t think twice.

They have the absolute best pepperoni pizza! When I lived in London, this place was pretty standard for Friday night with my family. It’s tiny, and the tables are close. But it’s so much fun, that one can overlook this. The food was reliable and the menu varied. Definitely a solid choice for Maida Vale.

Red Pepper is the Queen of Little Venice eateries, by a long shot. It’s been here for quite some time now, as far as I can remember; appearing out of nowhere, sometime during my teens, and this, coinciding with that particular era, holds many a memory for me (both good and bad), ones which are firmly embedded somewhere deep within the thorny hedgerows of Maida Vale’s memory lane. When I happen to pass it nowadays (which is not very often, but still), it all comes flooding back to me, sentimentally secular chunks of my life, certain stages, reeled out in front of me, like a montage of memoried moments. It’s weird how places (and music) can do that to a person. I remember when it opened, I think around the early 90’s, and I definitely remember each and every meal I had there, that’s for sure. It’s what Little Venice had been gasping for, for absolutely ages. A high quality, cosy, local eatery, that wasn’t too posh, wasn’t too complicated, wasn’t too intimidating or stuffy and that served wine by the bucket load (you have to bear in mind that Little Venetians are supposed to be sophisticated yeah?). The fact that it is situated on Formosa Street, really adds to it’s appeal and amplifies it’s cosiness ten fold. Formosa St is a snippet of a cut-​through street, Warrington Crescent’s tributary, trickling off the edge of Little Venice; a relic of a road that is basically frozen in time, Victorian time that is; you can literally smell the history in the air there. It’s a quiet side street, and this enables the restaurant to cater for those who want to dine outside. I think there are at least two tables out at the front, under the canopy. I haven’t been there for years, so I can only comment on how it used to be; but it looks pretty much the same as when I pass it now, so I’m not quite sure what the food is like nowadays; but having said that, I have had the odd pizza from there, taken-​away, perhaps three or four spread out during the last few years or so, and one thing that I certainly did notice, which was quite obviously apparent, was the reduction in size of the actual pizzas. The most recent ones I have had, seem to have been pruned down to around the 8″/9″ mark, whereas I am pretty sure they used to radiate out to the 11″/12″ mark, but don’t take my word for it. However, there was certainly no reduction in quality; but having said that, the latest creation I had the pleasure of wolfing down in about minute or so, the ‘Pizza Crudo’ (Fior de Latte (Mozarella cheese), San Danielle Ham, Rocket), resembled that of your typical Garlic bread, with regards to portion size, and fell seriously short of the mark when dealing with the diameter department. I also sensed a little bit of arty-​farty nouvelle cuisininess creeping out of the box, when eating this Pizza Crudo, as there was an obvious attempt of a flamboyant, theatrical, decorative display-​of-​a-​drizzle on show, which resulted in the curator’s pathetic display of pretentiousness, resembling what can quite easily be described as the map of the River Thames. The theme is Italian. Very Italian. An Italian pizzeria, with the focus on the actual Italian part. This was a cunning trick. Even Baldrick couldn’t see this one coming. He fooled everyone; the owner that is. He’s actually my neighbour, and he’s not even Italian. Nor is his accomplice, the lady that used to serve us back in the day when it first opened. These guys are Moroccans. You could’ve fooled me. I swear they used to greet us by saying Ciao and stuff like that. Hahahaha. I wonder what Ciao is in Moroccan. I only found out about it one night back in 1999 when I was hanging out with my brother and this dude on Clifton Road. The dude was a receptionist at the Collonade hotel and he knew the ins and outs of absolutely everything in the neighbourhood. He told us everything. Apparently the owner also owned the ‘Green Olive’ (I think this now changed into ‘Kateh’, run by the Persian lady who was his partner in Red Pepper?), which was another local restaurant in the neigbourhood, along with a bunch of other ones too. Whatever the case, they played the Italian card so well that they managed to dupe the lot of us!!! But apart from that, I remember the pizzas being absolutely delicious. They were cooked the authentic way, in a stone wood-​fired oven, which at the time was a bit of a novelty. Nowadays, Basilico and the likes use the same technique, and deliver to your door, but back then, those kind of delivery companies didn’t exist, I don’t think. There’s a ground level section with a big window, and a downstairs basement section. Downstairs you get the full view of the wood-​fire oven (wonderful during the wintertime), and it’s more private down there too; you can indulge in more heated conversations than you can do upstairs. Upstairs has the benefit of the front aspect window-​view though, so perhaps up there is better suited to lunchtime-​dining (whatever the case, this place is always full, so it’s not like you

Slightly above average pizza (by English standards), but very unfriendly and snooty staff. There are plenty of other places in Maida Vale to go to with better food, and where you’ll find a warmer welcome.

Great place to go on a date or to bring the kids. Really like the food!

Great neighborhood pizza place

What can I say about Red Pepper? It’s a tiny eatery with a huge heart. The staff is always incredibly accommodating (we brought a group of nine once, and while the place is clearly not designed for tables this size, they managed to squeeze us in) and the experience is something like going to a huge family dinner at your aunt’s house — her very crowded house, but still.
The first time I dined here, I was directed to take a look at the seafood specials up on the chalkboard. I have never gone back. These dishes have consistently been fresh, flavorful and satisfying. But what Red Pepper does best is its pizzas, and the Red Pepper Pizza is apparently so spectacular that my boyfriend — despite living in the neighborhood for a while and eating here frequently — refuses to order anything else.
If you happen to be in the neighborhood (or even if you don’t — that’s what the Tube is for), Red Pepper is definitely worth squeezing into.

Nice place with lively atmosphere.
People are very nice and food is fresh and very good.
Prices are reasonable.

An excellent local restaurant to go to if you live around Little Venice, Maida Vale or St John’s Wood. The place is small, the tables are tiny and close to each others and there is a tiny terrasse as well in this quiet, short and nicely curved street. I go there with friend from this neighbourhood and also for the food. The pizza are great since, as my great Roman friend Paolo would say, this is one of the few places in London with a real wood oven for the pizza. So the outcome is close to the real thing! And the other treat there is the tiramisu which is absolutely delicious. One of the best local Italian places I have been to in London.
PS: Avoid dining downstairs as I find that part too small and lacking atmosphere
PSS: My last experience there dates a bit so I wouldnt mind having some fresher news of the place from other Qypers!