Where to get Instagram's much-hyped ravioles du Dauphiné in London

Unless you’re one of the poor vegetarians who’s been forced to eat spaghetti in red sauce at Bouillon Chartier in Paris, you may not have experienced pasta in a French restaurant — yet, you might be interested to learn that the country’s inhabitants have been devouring it for just shy of 800 years.

The eldest and most creative variety is ravioles du Dauphiné, named after the south-central area where it was reportedly invented, now recognised as the Isère, Drôme and Hautes-Alpes regions.

Dreamt up during the Roman era, the dish — consisting of two flat sheets of wheat pasta pressed together to create pockets of filling — was once filled with a mixture of meat and vegetables and served for lent. Today, however, it is traditionally bundled with either Comté or Emmental cheese, fromage blanc (a fresh, creamy, cow’s-milk cheese) and parsley fried in butter.

The unique, picture-perfect dish recently went viral when it appeared on the menu at Café Chelsea in New York, nevertheless it’s been flying under the radar in London for much longer.

Here, you can often find it served at seafood restaurant La Petite Poissonnerie, Marylebone, though for the best experience book into Maison François, St James, where Matt Ryle serves his pre-chopped (no, sadly it doesn’t come as a big sheet) with Comté and freshly cracked black pepper.

The chef, who first tried the Frenchman’s cacio e pepe at Terminus Nord, Paris, says, ‘You can’t go too far wrong with cheese and pasta.’ And who are we to argue with that?