Crystal Wise
Not that long ago, the number of Fort Worth restaurants that went to the trouble of making their own pastas was relatively small. Most local restaurants that served pasta settled for the pre-packaged variety, relying on sauces and seasonings to win over diners.
The arrival of Piattello Italian Kitchen in 2017 was a turning point for pasta lovers in Fort Worth. Piattello was the first modern Italian restaurant in Fort Worth to make each of its pastas in-house — an absolute rarity in our city.
Opened by local chef and restaurateur Marcus Paslay, Piattello paved the way for other modern Italian restaurants to open in Fort Worth — in particular, those that make their own pastas. Today, there’s nearly a half-dozen restaurants that serve freshly made pasta.
Some of the chefs responsible for this pasta revolution spoke to us about their cooking techniques, what makes their pastas tick, and the first time they fell in love with pasta.
1 of 4
Crystal Wise
Scott Lewis Piattello Italian Kitchen, 5924 Convair Drive piattelloitaliankitchen.com
2 of 4
Crystal Wise
3 of 4
Crystal Wise
4 of 4
Crystal Wise
Chef: Scott Lewis, executive chef for Scratch Made Hospitality, the local restaurant group formed by Marcus Paslay.
Restaurant: Lewis oversees the kitchens in each of Scratch Made’s restaurants, but he has a particular love for Piattello, where Paslay encouraged him to make the modern Italian menu his own.
Pasta he wants you to try: Piattello’s superb saffron linguine is a menu mainstay, but its ingredients change with the season. Right now, Lewis is serving it with Gulf shrimp, end of summer corn, jalapeno, and basil.
Cooking technique: “You need a bit of finesse when it comes to getting the pasta al dente. The pasta can overcook quickly in the sauce, so you have to be very accurate with the amount of sauce you have in the pan. Using salted water to cook the pasta is crucial at the beginning stage so the pasta itself gets seasoned. We only use bronze die to extrude our pasta, which creates ridges in the pasta that help the sauce cling to it.”
What he loves about this pasta: “The amazing thing about the linguine is, it’s a very classic dish that embodies simplicity. And that’s what Italian food is to me.”
Favorite childhood memory of pasta: “My mom would make a delicious Bolognese and an amazing chicken and noodles dish. This was probably where I fell in love with pasta and different types of sauces. Growing up, my friends would pile into my house every Sunday for my mom’s chicken and noodles. It was such a simple dish but one I will never forget.”
1 of 4
Crystal Wise
Donatella Trotti Nonna Tata, 1400 W. Magnolia Ave., nonnatata.com
2 of 4
Crystal Wise
3 of 4
Crystal Wise
4 of 4
Crystal Wise
Chef: Donatella Trotti
Restaurant: Nonna Tata, a long-running Italian restaurant on the Near Southside whose patio overlooks Magnolia Avenue.
Pasta she wants you to try: Her housemade cappellacci, a hard-to-find stuffed pasta that takes time and patience to make. “It resembles a hat, which is `cappello’ in Italian,” she says. “It’s just a little bigger than another pasta called cappelletti. As you know, there are more pasta shapes and kinds than Italians.”
What’s in it: “The filling is a combination of cured meats, prosciutto, mortadella, salame, prosciutto cotto, sausage, spinach, parmigiano, and pork loin, that I cook porchetta-style, using a combination of Tuscan spices,” she says. “Everything is ground together; then I shape it into small balls. The pasta is an egg pasta made with soft flour. It is a `rich pasta,’ because I do not use egg whites, only yolks. The classic serving is with brown butter and sage. Right now, I am serving it with brown butter and truffle-infused Marcona almonds.
What she loves about this pasta: “I can change the filling from time to time, sometimes just because of a new dream — I do dream about food combinations! I really like the shape, too. Not only is it unique but it has so many folds and crevices, it’s easy for a sauce to hold onto.”
Favorite childhood memory of pasta: “I started working on pasta when I was 6. That makes a LOT of years, but please do not ask how many. My grandma, Nonna Tata, who I named the restaurant after, would always make ravioli for Christmas. The day before, all the aunts would meet in her kitchen and work on the ravioli. My job was to close them, making sure no air was left inside. I still am very careful, still a little scared, or I can see my grandma’s disapproving smile. On Christmas Day we would serve them with a meat sauce for lunch and in a wonderful broth for the evening.”
1 of 4
Crystal Wise
Blaine Staniford 61 Osteria 500 West Seventh St. 61osteria.com
2 of 4
Crystal Wise
3 of 4
Crystal Wise
4 of 4
Crystal Wise
Chef: Blaine Staniford
Restaurant: Grace, Little Red Wasp, 61 Osteria
Pasta he wants you to try: At the recently opened 61 Osteria, an exquisite contemporary Italian restaurant located on the ground floor of the First on 7th tower downtown, the pasta du jour is Serpente, a visually stunning pasta stuffed with ricotta cheese and topped with a lemon butter sauce and hen of the wood mushrooms. The pasta itself is served coiled, like a snake. “It’s a derivative of a very famous pasta shape called agnolotti, which translates to little pillows,” says Staniford, the restaurant’s executive chef. “What we do is make the agnolotti, then roll into what resembles a serpent’s tail, and then we coil the tail. It’s a really cool presentation.”
It’s made the old-fashioned way: While some chefs use pasta makers for their housemade pastas, Staniford says this particular dish requires everything to be made by hand. “There’s just no way you could get a machine to make pasta in such an unusual shape,” he says. The ricotta cheese is made by hand, too. What isn’t made by hand is painstakingly utilized, such as the hen of the wood mushrooms, which sit atop the pasta. “We wanted mushrooms to be a big focus of this dish,” he says. “So, we take hen of the wood mushrooms and ferment them, and that’s about a four-week process. But doing that, spending that much time on something so seemingly small, produces a flavor that keeps you coming back for more and more.”
Favorite kind of pasta growing up: “Man, that’s a hard one for me. I’m not gonna lie, though — I’ve probably had Velvetta shells and cheese in about every form you can think of. It was always something that was so easy to make. To this day,
I still love it!”
1 of 4
Crystal Wise
Greg Pawlowski Il Modo 714 Main St. ilmodorestaurant.com
2 of 4
Crystal Wise
3 of 4
Crystal Wise
4 of 4
Crystal Wise
Chef: Greg Pawlowski
Restaurant: Il Modo, the stylish modern Italian restaurant found on the ground level of the Kimpton Harper Hotel downtown. The dining area looks onto the glass-enclosed pasta-making room, where chefs and cooks create their pastas, and where pasta-making classes are hosted monthly by Pawlowski and other members of the kitchen team.
Pasta he wants you to try: Pawlowski’s show-stopping fettucine with wild mushrooms and white truffle, the featured dish on Il Modo’s new fall menu. “It is a simple dish, but I feel it is one of the best ways to showcase the beautiful mushrooms,” he says. “It is rich and buttery. It doesn’t hurt that it goes with almost every wine on our menu.”
Those mushrooms, though: “The grower is Texas Fungus. They are a mushroom mix grown in Arlington. These are some of the best-looking mushrooms I have seen in my career.”
Favorite kind of pasta growing up: “My favorite pasta to eat was spaghetti Bolognese. Sometimes you can’t beat the classics. My favorite pasta to make was tortellini en brodo (a stuffed pasta served in a broth). My grandmother would make everything from scratch; then she would form thousands of mini tortellini by hand.”
1 of 4
Crystal Wise
Tim Love Caterina’s 128 E. Exchange Ave. Ste. 620 caterinasftx.com
2 of 4
Crystal Wise
3 of 4
Crystal Wise
4 of 4
Crystal Wise
Chef: Tim Love
Restaurant: The city’s most well-known chef owns several restaurants in and beyond Fort Worth, including the high-end Italian eatery Caterina’s in the Fort Worth Stockyards. Before Love opened Caterina’s, he was making his own pastas at Gemelle.
Pasta he wants you to try: Spaghetti Carbonara at Caterina’s. Think regular spaghetti but with a bacon-and-eggs flavor.
Looks can be deceiving: When it comes to making pasta, most chefs agree on at least one thing: Pasta is a simple dish, pieced together with only a handful of ingredients but often difficult to make. Same goes for Love’s Spaghetti Carbonara. “The dish is actually quite simple but not particularly easy to make, at least not easy to make really well,” he says. The secret lies within the water used to cook the pasta, he says. “The pasta must be cooked in water that tastes like the ocean,” says Love. “When cooking pasta, you must season the water in order to season the pasta.”
What’s in it? “The noodle is pure semolina flour and water — that’s it,” Love says. The noodles are cooked with/tricked out with guaciale (pork cheek), which the restaurant makes in-house; egg yolks; chopped garlic; pepper; fresh shaved Parmesan; and a touch of sea salt. “Carbonara is one of the four Roman pastas,” he says. “The others are cacio e pepe, amatriciana, and gricia. All of them are quite simple and very similar. Carbonara is the richest of all four, yet there is no cream or extra butter. It’s eggs and bacon for dinner.”
Favorite pasta dish growing up: My favorite pasta as a kid was spaghetti with garlic and Parmesan — the cheap kind in a can!
