Why was it that when lockdown haunted our doors we all rushed out to buy pasta? Dry wheat in a bag in a funny shape. Cheap, yes, and ridiculously easy to cook. And, if the supermarket cheddar didn’t run out, very good with cheese. But still, pasta. Shouldn’t we have thought of something more inventive?
Yet a spate of restaurants popping up round London with new enthusiasm now that we’re out and about again suggests that the Italian carb is enjoying a gourmet renaissance.
Stevie Parle, founder of the fresh pasta restaurant Pastaio, speaks of pasta-making as an ‘obsession’. The satisfaction of ‘extruding pasta through bronze dies’ and ‘slow cooking delicious ragu’ that he refers to when we speak sounds practically religious.
You only have to watch the eternally watchable Stanley Tucci’s recent foray for the BBC to Rome to appreciate the fervour the Italians feel about the stuff.
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