Andrew Macleod

Macleod was born and raised in West London. He has said that at 17 he founded his own poker events company, hosting private high-stakes and corporate poker events around London, and that he ran the business throughout his time at university while studying mathematics. “Poker paid for university,” he said; the business covered corporate events, home games and private high-stakes games, and it never took a rake.⁠[1][1][1][2][2]

At university he became obsessed with making pasta from scratch and was frustrated by the gap between what he made at home and what casual dining restaurants served. He said that pasta at high-end places costing £20 or more a bowl was good, but what the big chains and old-fashioned independents offered for about a tenner was “awful.” In his final year at university he came up with the specialist pasta concept that would become Emilia’s.⁠[2][2][2][2]

In 2015 he sold the poker events company to a competitor in the events space, and soon afterwards travelled to Italy. He said he is not Italian but wanted to learn everything, and he fell in love with the Emilia-Romagna region. He stayed with locals through a couch-surfing website, asked his hosts where to eat, and some of them cooked for him; he wanted to understand the science behind pairing pasta and sauce and to meet small local suppliers.⁠[1][1][1][2][1]

On his return he sought investors, and in November 2016, at the age of 25, he opened the first Emilia’s Crafted Pasta at St Katharine Docks, just east of the Tower of London. The small site required a total investment of just under £150,000, of which he put up 25%, with the rest coming from a handful of his poker contacts. Before the opening he said he wanted it to be “the best pasta restaurant outside of Italy,” with all pasta made on site every morning; the first head chef was Simone Stagnitto from Genoa, and the restaurant had room for about 35 diners including outdoor seating.⁠[1][2][2][3][3][3][3]

He said he had never worked in a restaurant before launching Emilia’s; a few days after opening, a member of the team suggested that they should have a rota. The brand is named after Emilia-Romagna: he said the region is the source of many of its key ingredients, including parmesan, balsamic vinegar and some cured meats, and is also where many of Italy’s most famous pasta recipes originate. Shortly after opening, the restaurant received a glowing review in Metro.⁠[2][2][2][2]

In February 2019 Emilia’s opened its second restaurant, in Aldgate, London. He said the team made sure the first restaurant worked perfectly before launching the second, that expansion was entirely organic, and that the company remained 100% debt free.⁠[1][2][2]

In August 2021 he announced a flagship restaurant on George Street in the Wood Wharf development at Canary Wharf, the brand’s largest yet, originally planned to open that November. He said Canary Wharf had intended to split the building into two units but found there was not enough power for two operators, so it offered Emilia’s the whole building; he had first viewed the site just before the COVID-19 pandemic and acquired it during lockdown. The restaurant was later scheduled to open on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2022, and opened in 2022 as the group’s third restaurant and the first with a bar area and a separate menu; the bar area also has a bocce table.⁠[4][4][2][2][2][2][1][2][2][2]

In April 2022 he said the company had “suffered hugely” during the pandemic, with the Aldgate restaurant particularly dependent on the City of London, but that a collaborative relationship with its landlord helped it get through; he ruled out opening in high-rent areas such as Soho and Covent Garden because “the numbers just don’t add up.” At the time the head office consisted of only a few people, including an operations director, a marketing manager and HR and finance staff; he did all the food development himself and project-managed as much as possible himself, including restaurant builds.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2]

In August 2023, as founder and chief executive, he announced a fourth restaurant on Baker Street in Marylebone, London, with 85 seats in total. He said Emilia’s aimed to become “the UK’s favourite pasta restaurant brand.” By October 2024 Emilia’s was operating in Aldgate, St Katharine Docks, Canary Wharf and Marylebone.⁠[5][5][5][5][6]

In October 2024 Emilia’s launched an online shop focused on dried pasta, ahead of a planned push into shops and supermarkets. The first products were three shapes, Bucatini, Casarecce and Rigatoni, made from 100% Italian durum wheat with European Protected Geographical Indication (P.G.I.) certification, bronze-die extruded and slow-dried in the Italian town of Gragnano. Macleod said the line had taken two years to develop, that Emilia’s would be “the challenger brand in supermarkets and delis,” and that it wanted to “make pasta fun again.”⁠[6][6][6][6][6][6]

In March 2025 he announced a fifth restaurant in Victoria, London, as the group’s new flagship, with 100 seats, its largest at the time, expected to open that summer. He called it “our largest and most ambitious restaurant to date.” By May 2026 the Victoria restaurant was in operation.⁠[7][7][7][7][8]

In May 2026 he announced a sixth restaurant near Tottenham Court Road station, in the Central St. Giles piazza designed by Renzo Piano, with about 55 seats inside and about 25 on a covered outdoor terrace. He said the most special thing was seeing the community of fresh pasta lovers grow with the brand. As of October 2026, Emilia’s has six restaurants in London, in Aldgate, Baker Street, Canary Wharf, St Katharine Docks, Tottenham Court Road and Victoria, and the new Tottenham Court Road restaurant has been taking bookings from October 14.⁠[8][8][8][8][9][9]

On August 5, 2026, The Venture RoomThe Venture RoomThe Venture Room is a UK entrepreneurial media brand centered on the YouTube channel @theventureroom. Through long-form interviews with founders and street interviews such as “Asking Millionaires How They Got Rich?”, it presents entrepreneurs’ stories and advice to aspiring business owners, and runs an entrepreneur community and brand partnerships.Open the full entry released a street interview video filmed in Mayfair, London, in which he is identified only by his first name, Andrew. Appearing at 23:02 in the video, he said his first million came from pasta. He said that at 17 he began running private poker events in London, and that he later put in 25,000, everything he had saved in his life, and raised 100,000 from clients of the poker business to open the pasta restaurant; before opening he spent a couple of years travelling around Italy working with chefs, and he had never worked a day in a restaurant when he opened it. He said in the interview that Emilia’s would turn over around 10 million this year (no currency was stated for any of these figures).⁠[10][10][10][10][10][10][10]

He recalled that in the first two or three months after opening, the restaurant averaged only two, three or four customers a night. He stood by the menu outside the restaurant every day talking to passers-by, telling them “if you don’t like it, it’s on me”; most of those people ended up paying double as a tip. Then a review appeared in Metro, business kept building from there, and they began to expand.⁠[10][10][10][10][10][10]

“The loudest boos always come from the cheapest seats.” He said there will always be a lot of criticism and opinions; some of it should be taken on board, but 90% of it needs to be filtered out, because internally you have to keep things stable. (at 24:14 in the video)⁠[10][10][10]

“It’s not about how much you earn. It’s also about how much you save, how much you consume, how much you invest.” He believes the wealthy understand a “financial diet”: consumption should reflect who you are as a person and how you want to live, not rise with your income. (at 24:31 in the video)⁠[10][10][10]

“An investment in yourself is as simple as reading a book.” He said reading for an hour a day builds knowledge and wisdom, that a £10 book can give a far greater return than any other investment, and that this knowledge stays with you forever. (at 25:02 in the video)⁠[10][10][10][10]

Emilia’s Crafted Pasta: Official website: https://www.emiliaspasta.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]