The NY Times 25 Essential Pasta Dishes
And my 10 most memorable pasta dishes
At the beginning of the year, I got an email from one of the features editors at T: The New York Times Style Magazine to ask me to be part of a panel in February about the essential pasta dishes in Italy, part of a series that they’ve been running, for example 25 Essential Dishes to Eat In Mexico City and The 25 Essential Dishes to Eat in Paris.
I knew even at this point that there would be “but what about…?!” from many outraged pasta lovers!
I love a good conversation about pasta (or any food that people feel passionate about). Pasta, I feel, is so personal. It’s a dish that is comfort food, a basic staple, a dish that people are raised on and nurtured with, and yet it’s also a dish that you would travel the world for — which is quite the point of this list. The 25 Essential Pasta Dishes to Eat in Italy invites you to take a look and maybe note some down for your next trip to the area (or maybe a pasta inspired road trip?). I think of it as a list of pasta to try right now — not a definitive list, not a set in stone list, not at all a list of the only pasta dishes to eat. But a suggestion for some dishes to try in this moment.
So I was keen to be part of it. It worked like this. There were five panelists. The others consisted of two Michelin starred chefs, the Italian-American chef Stefano Secchi (an alumnus of the Osteria Francescana family) of Rezdora in NYC and Piedmontese Davide Palluda, who runs All’Enoteca in Canale, Piedmont. Then there were three food writers. The Italian based American historian Karima Moyer-Nocchi, Roberta Corradin, Italian author and translator who lives between Boston and Sicily — and me.
We were asked to send in our 10 most “essential” pasta dishes and the places where we ate them, “meaning, historically or culturally significant, extraordinarily inventive and/or an outstanding example of the dish,” wrote Debi Dunn, the editor. This in itself was a hard task — only 10? We had to consider, to,o a range of different kinds of eateries, different price points, diverse chefs, diverse regions, etc for a rounded list.
Then with 50 dishes in front of us on a spreadsheet and a two hour time slot, the 5 of us, with Debi, whittled down 50 of our most personal, favourite pasta dishes from all of our experiences, down to the list of 25 that finally came out on Friday, 18 May —
25 essential pasta dishes to try in Italy
No wonder Davide Pallude said, “I’m sweating,” as we started our debate over what was to be taken off the list and what could stay. What pressure!
Already I have received messages (“How could they miss pasta al pomodoro? Or tagliatelle al ragù?” “I’m Italian… I’ve browsed the list and from my personal point of view is fairly disappointing” “I’m sorry no pasta list without tagliatelle al ragu can be taken seriously.” etc etc). Which, by the way, is just incomplete reading, on the list you’ll find the dish tajarin al ragu — a classic from Piedmont, tajarin is dialect for tagliolini, which are thin tagliatelle — and you could say the pasta all’assassina from Puglia is also a pasta al pomodoro, it’s just then put on a pan until it gets crispy, wonderful burnt bits around the edges.
Roberta Corradin, responding to an outraged commenter (“they should have put spaghetti with clams and tortellini”) put it perfectly:
“Selecting only 25 must-have pasta dishes is a cruel assignment. They should be 250 to cover the variety of our country. But 25 is a great beginning.”
Cruel indeed.
For the record, we discussed at GREAT length classic tagliatelle al ragu (you will see, I submitted one below), pasta con le vongole, tortellini, tortelloni, even less famous pasta dishes, from bigoli with duck to pansoti filled with preboggion. We discussed pasta dishes probably no one has ever heard of from struncatura (a rye pasta from Calabria) to schlutzkrapfen (a rye dough ravioli filled with sauerkraut from Trentino Alto-Adige). We discussed lesser known regions like Friuli, Molise, Abruzzo, and Basilicata. We talked about it ALL. It took two hours to hash it out on Zoom and many, many, many more emails. And it was a thoroughly absorbing, interesting, at times heated discussion on the most amazing pasta dishes that we love.
After we trimmed the list down to the 25, the NY Times then handed the list over to journalists and food writers (from the likes of Vicky Bennison, Kristina Gill,
, Laura Evans, Robyn Eckhardt, Katie Parla, and more), who then went out and tried them all (and made sure they really were as good as they should be) and completed the article with their words.I wanted to share with you the list I originally submitted of my personal 10 favourite pasta dishes. It was even difficult to narrow it down to 10. I would easily have added the blue crab spaghetti from Venissa’s Osteria Contemporanea on Mazzorbo island and Gatto Nero’s linguine with scampi and artichokes on Burano, both of which I just had recently in Venice. I would have added the pasta with arselle or telline (the now harder and harder to find clams that are native to the Costa d’Argento in Tuscany’s south) from Il Braccio, a wooden beach club right on the sand at Porto Ercole’s Feniglia beach. The seafood ravioli at Osteria del Mare in Livorno. The sea urchin pasta (swoon) from Bagni Italia in Castiglioncello. And I would have liked to put Taranto’s Trattoria del Pescatore’s ditalini with mussels and beans on the list. There are so many.
But taking into consideration the editor’s brief and thinking of this type of list as a travel highlight and a representation of Italy’s culinary best hits, here below is what I could narrow down.
My 10 most memorable pasta dishes
Tagliatelle al ragu di Chianina at Fattoria Poggio Alloro, San Gimignano (photo above)
This is the first thing that pops into my mind when someone says “essential pasta dishes in Italy”. It’s what I think of as the ultimate tagliatelle al ragu and I’ve been eating it for about 16 years, give or take. It’s made by the most wonderful women on an organic Tuscan farm, an agriturismo, near San Gimignano, in the middle of vineyards. Three generations of the Fioroni family work together to grow the wheat for the pasta and raise Chianina, heirloom Tuscan cattle, and they are careful to use all the cuts in this insanely delicious ragu. You slurp it up while admiring the unbelievable view of the medieval towers of San Gimignano — my absolute happy place.
Cavatelli cacio e pepe with marinated raw red prawns from Mazara del Vallo (IYKYK) and baby calamari at Atto di Vito Mollica (previously Chic Nonna), Florence
I know, I know. Cavatelli. Cacio e pepe. Sicilian red prawns. You may be thinking what does this have to do with Florence and I completely understand if you didn’t know about this dish. The first thing I’m going to say is believe it or not, pasta is not traditionally Florentine anyway. Florence is more of a soup place. But Vito Mollica (who is originally from Basilicata) is an iconic chef in Florence. He was the Michelin-starred chef of the Four Seasons in Florence’s Palagio Restaurant and this is his signature dish, it is part of his story and it has travelled with him from restaurant to restaurant. It’s become an award-winning, must have pasta dish. And luckily, while my husband Marco was working with Vito at the Four Seasons for 6 years, I was able to taste this dish a few times.
Rigatoni alla pajata from Flavio al Velavevodetto, Rome
I admit I haven’t had this in a while but if we are making a list of my most memorable pasta dishes (which is basically what this is), this dish absolutely blew my mind when I first had it. For those who don’t know what pajata is — vegetarians look away — it is a Roman specialty of intestines of milk-fed veal which reveal a tasty, ricotta cheese-like cream inside when cooked. They are either simply grilled or tossed through rigatoni and tomato sauce. It was over a decade ago (you can read about it in this post from 2011) and I took
’s advice on that trip (and you should too).Agnolotti al sugo di arrosto from Osteria Antiche Sere, Torino
Another one from my memory bank of favourite meals. I was in Torino researching Tortellini at Midnight and the place where I was staying was around the corner from here (it’s in a residential part of Torino, not in the centre). I saw all the Slow Food stickers and I knew it would be good. These agnolotti al plin, delicately handmade, served in a lip-smacking sauce from the roasting pan, have been the gold standard for agnolotti for me ever since.
Tagliatelle cacio e burro from Cibreo, Florence (top photo)
This made the list because everyone agreed that Florence should be there somewhere, that Cibreo, a Florentine institution since 1979, should be the one restaurant to represent the Renaissance city, and that tagliatelle with a simple sauce of butter and parmigiano is an absolute classic. One of the easy ones! I will add here another reason I like it is that it has a slightly unorthodox ingredient added to it — carrot puree to the sauce to give it that bright yellow colour — and there’s a little story to it too. Fabio Picchi (the late chef and founder) called it the tagliatelle rubate (“stolen” tagliatelle) because the idea for it came from another restaurant that is also a bit of an institution —Harry’s Bar.
Tagliolini al Tartufo Bianco di San Miniato from Papaveri e Papere, San Miniato, Tuscany (photo below)
Hands down the best tagliolini with white truffle, one of the most perfect pasta dishes ever. And I know people will say, “But what about Alba in Piedmont?” But I dare you to try them side by side! I have and Alba is great but San Miniato’s white truffles are simply wonderful. They are only less famous than Alba because they’re not as good at marketing (cheeky, I know, but seriously come and try them this November at the White Truffle Festival in San Miniato and see for yourself!).
Minestra “Rasnal” or the Etruscan soup at Ristorante Maggese, San Miniato (Tuscany)
A sort of pasta e fagioli (which everyone agreed should be on the list), this “Etruscan soup” is made with a base of fagioli rossi (red beans from the Lunigiana in Tuscany’s northwest and foraged greens. In a separate bowl come little seasonal, stuffed pasta parcels with great local extra virgin olive oil. You can choose to eat the two elements separately or tip the pasta into the bowl of the bean soup and eat them together. I love this dish so much. And I love what they do here so much. It’s a shock that this restaurant has not received its first Michelin star yet so while it’s still under the radar you should come and try it. The degustation is one of the most fun I’ve ever had eating out and costs only 62 euro. And, it’s all completely vegetarian (or vegan), though it’s not hugely obvious that it is trying to identify as vegetarian. It just is. I fought so hard to have this on the list — it was tough to convince the other panelists of it because it’s so unusual, but on the other hand it was easy to get onto the list because for the editor, this was exactly the kind of dish she wanted to feature: an unknown chef, in a small town, doing really interesting, innovative things with a nod to tradition but thinking outside of the box. This is the future of Tuscan food.
Pansoti al astice (Ligurian ravioli filled with black lobster in creamy tomato sauce) at Ristorante da Cecio, Corniglia (Cinque Terre, Liguria)
My husband and I have been coming here for over a decade and although the Cinque Terre has changed a lot, this restaurant has stayed the same — just a simple restaurant with simple rooms, run by the same Signora Elia and her family. It’s in the smallest of the Cinque Terre villages, Corniglia, the only one that is up high and not lapped by the water’s edge and it’s set back from the main part of the tiny village. Sit on the terrace for a sea view — it’s magical watching the sunset over dinner here. I had proposed the Ligurian pansoti (stuffed ravioli) with lobster but they didn’t have the pansoti when the journalist went to try it, so it was their linguine with astice (lobster) that made it onto the list instead.
Handpulled strangozzi (or any of the handmade pasta dishes!) with wild foraged herbs from Enoteca l’Alchimista, Montefalco (Umbria)
This Umbrian restaurant was first recommended to me by my winemaker friends who live nearby at La Segreta (see my Umbria mini guide from that stay) — it’s their favourite restaurant and when we went, we fell in love completely with it too. One visit to this place and I was ready to move to Montefalco. The pasta is all made fresh out the back, the vegetables are foraged or come from their kitchen garden and whether you sit out in the charming piazza or inside under the frescoed ceilings, it is special. It’s no wonder this one easily made the list without any arguments!
Reginette al ragu d’anatra (thick pasta with duck ragu) from Da Delfina in Artimino, Tuscany
Last but not at all least, I’m quietly relieved that this one did not make the list for the NY Times because I would jealously like to keep this place secret for myself! Just kidding. Sort of. Da Delfina is my dream restaurant. This is the kind of place I think represents Tuscan cuisine like no other. Set in the old hunting reserve of the Medici family (there is literally a —crumbling— stone wall that kept the hunting reserve private), Delfina is still the place to come for that Tuscan specialty of cacciagione, game. There’s a wide open kitchen with a fireplace. There’s a terrace overlooking the beautiful olive groves and the sweeping views of the hunting reserve and the Medici’s lodge, the Villa dei Cento Camini (the villa of a hundred chimneys). Talk about atmosphere.
What a gargantuan task!
Ah, Emiko. You write so wonderfully, all the little stories of the pasta dishes are so evocative. You might remember that we spent nearly every summer during my childhood at our friend's relative's mountaintop farmhouse near Monterotondo Marittimo that she rented out to family& friends. And once or so, every summer, we would go to Follonica and eat at a restaurant that I just remember as "Da Nino"- the chef's name was Nino. And it was very hot and we were still relatively young in those days and most often the meals lasted for hours and the tasting menu the adults (often?) got had many courses, like 13. And there was a farfalle with a spicy pink tomato sauce and gamberi (o gamberetti?) that must've been super fresh and local, they made the sauce so sweet. And I even loved it with the peperoncino in it and all. That's one of my most memorable pasta dishes. I've often tried to recreate it, but, without the salty sea air and the magic of childhood and those long, hot summers sitting outside in the heat under the umbrella's shade, the parents getting tipsy and us playing amongst the chairs there I've just never had the same sensation eating something close to it ever again. I will try ask my parents if they remember the restaurants' name.