Popular meal kit service Pasta Evangelists will open its second restaurant in London, after it was granted a new licence.

The fresh pasta company already has a physical branch in Harrods and will now open another restaurant in Richmond town centre, which will also offer takeaways and pasta-making classes.

Richmond Council's licensing committee granted the licence allowing Pasta Evangelists to open until 10.30pm every day, and sell booze, after a hearing on 2 July.

Residents had raised concerns about the plans, particularly as the venue on Hill Street is in a cumulative impact zone, where the granting of licences is strictly limited to avoid adding to disturbance in the area.

Peter Willan, representing Friends of Richmond Green and the Richmond Society, told the hearing he did not think the restaurant needed to sell booze.

With thousands of people visiting Richmond on summer weekends, Mr Willan said: "I think it's just another takeaway and frankly the town is absolutely saturated with licensed premises in serious trouble.

"Many of the restaurants, particularly the middle-market ones, are in deep trouble, I would suggest.

"If you walk around the town… they're just having to close on some days of the week and there's nobody in them in the weekdays, so I think there's grave concern if we're adding alcohol to this and hopefully you can be successful without that."

But Solicitor Mark Browning, representing applicant Amish Patel, director of Ara Pasta Limited, said the licence should be granted as an exception to the council's cumulative impact policy as the restaurant was small and did not promote drinking, with booze only to be sold to customers having a meal.

He said Mr Patel had initially applied for much later hours and had since cut them to a 'sensible time' and agreed to conditions to address residents' concerns.

Mr Browning told the hearing Pasta Evangelists wanted to expand by opening new restaurants, and that this would be its second physical branch – bringing something 'something exciting' to Richmond.

He added: "Pasta Evangelists is very much about bringing authentic Italian pasta to the community of Richmond and it is hoped that people will engage with pasta-making, which is a fundamental part of it."

The restaurant is now allowed to sell alcohol from 9am to 10pm on Mondays to Sundays, and stay open for 30 minutes later.

A report on the committee's decision to grant the licence said it had taken into account the venue was a 'small capacity, seated restaurant, non-alcohol led premises with reduced hours, much reduced from those initially applied for'.

It said the applicant was an 'experienced operator' and the granted licence, with the high number of agreed conditions, was 'appropriate' to make sure the restaurant would not add to disturbance in the cumulative impact zone.

Conditions added to the licence by the committee include banning customers from buying booze with takeaway orders and only allowing guests at pasta-making classes to drink booze if they're sitting down with a meal.

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