WINTER SEASON
Our Pasta Programme
Every season, we shine a spotlight on a series of traditional pasta shapes fabricated using traditional methods and their culinary anthropology—from the moments in history that led to them, to the regional influences that shape them from past to present.
Ease into Winter with Raschiatelli, a scraped pasta that we serve alla Potentina – in a rich sauce of veal and pork, garnished with fried dried sweet peppers and a renowned Lucanian hard cheese.
Marvel at the depth achievable with fried eggplant and tomatoes with a Catania flagship, Rigatoni Lisci con Sugo alla Norma. Admire the skill and focus it takes to knead, roll, and braid rings of Lorighittas.
We also mark the return of our Tortellini in Brodo, a favourite from our opening menu that is making the rounds again just in time for the December rain.
Experience Italy’s nuanced regional diversity through the lens of the seasons, one strand, parcel, or shape at a time.
Tortellini in Brodo
Origins: Bologna, Emilia-Romagna (North)
Pork, mortadella, and prosciutto di parma-filled egg pasta in a clear, slow-simmered chicken brodo
A beloved and fiercely guarded emblem of Emilia-Romagna’s cuisine, tortellini involves fresh egg pasta sheets that rolled out manually with a rolling pin before being filled with exacting ratios of Mortadella di Bologna, Prosciutto Crudo, and Parmigiano Reggiano DOP. Each diminutive piece is sealed by hand, with the size, weight and composition of each tortellino in accordance with parameters of the registered recipe. They are 100% handmade, produced with traditional methods without the “taint” of modern machinery and are considered by many as the “king of pasta” and rightly so, given the ingredients, time and specialist skills necessary in making it in accordance with Emilia-Romagna’s almost religious standards. As Massimo Bottura once famously quipped: “if you don’t believe in God, believe in tortellini” – a somewhat ironic statement given the pagan myth surrounding the pasta’s origins: it is believed that the tortellini were invented by an innkeeper in Castelfranco Emilia and modelled after the navel of Venus, the goddess of love.
Umbricelli alla Norcina
Origins: Norcia, Perugia, Umbria (Central)
Handmade long ropes of eggless pasta with crumbled pork sausage, Pecorino Romano D.O.P. Crosta Nera, black winter truffles
Etymologically speaking, Umbricelli either gets its name from ‘umbrico’ or ‘earthworm’ in the Perugian dialect, or its region of origin. Its former moniker comes from its shape of fat, hand-rolled strands made with a dough constructed from just wheat flour and water. While simple, this pasta has been recognised by Italy’s Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies as a Prodotto Agroalimentare Tradizionale (PAT) or a “traditional agri-food product” due to its historical and rural beginnings. We offer a sauce of commensurate heartiness for this rustic pasta: alla Norcina, or in the style of Norcia’s famous pork butchers – who are renowned for their delicious charcuterie. Crumbled pork sausage forms the meaty base for this sauce, which is then enriched with white wine, ricotta, Pecorino and freshly milled black pepper. This soul-and-belly warming sauce is lifted and completed with black winter trufffles.
Tagliatelle con Ragù alla Bolognese
Origins: Bologna, Emilia-Romagna (North)
Flat egg noodles with a sauce made from minced beef, minced pork, pancetta, meat stock, white wine, soffritto, milk, and tomato puree
The first thing we feel compelled to say is: spaghetti alla Bolognese does not exist in Italy. And according to a former mayor of Bologna, Virginio Merola, it does not exist at all, calling all instances of the offending dish “fake news”. Instead, ragù alla Bolognese – first mentioned in a cookbook published in 1891 by the author Pellegrino Artusi – is more commonly served with flat pasta like tagliatelle to have more surface area for sauce contact. Our tagliatelle is the painstaking product of an old world technique – where the dough is kneaded and rolled by hand into large silky sfoglia, before being cut into precise ribbons. The ragu itself is another labour of time and love, where minced meats and pancetta are slowly simmered in stock, white wine, tomato puree, and milk for a rich, unctuous sauce that coats each strand of tagliatelle.
Raschiatelli con Ragù alla Potentina
Origins: Potenza, Basilicata (South)
Short pasta made using heritage organic durum wheat (Saragolla Lucana) dressed with a sugo of veal and pork. Garnished with peperoni cruschi, freshly grated horseradish and Canestrato di Moliterno I.G.P.
Made by scraping cylinders of semolina dough across a wooden board with one’s fingers, raschiatelli—from the word “raschiare”, meaning “to scrape’’—finds its roots in the historical region of Lucania (modern day Basilicata), where scraped pasta like orecchiette are popular thanks to the very modest equipment required in their production. While its origins are humble, it is definitely no lesser. The bean pod-shaped raschiatelli offers a rarefied eating experience, with each piece offering one smooth side, and one concave, rough side that perfectly traps chunky, meaty sauce. We do ours with the celebratory ragù of Potenza, a sauce made with whole cuts of veal and pork ribs. Integral to the unique cultural experience of Lucania are the traditional garnishes of peperoni cruschi, a dried sweet pepper made crispy with a dip in hot oil, freshly grated horseradish and Canestrato di Moliterno, a renowned Lucanian hard cheese made from sheep and goat’s milk.
Spaghetti alla Puttanesca con Tonno
Origins: Ischia, Naples, Campania (South)
Bronze extruded long pasta with a red sauce of tomato passata, olives, capers, parsley, anchovies and fresh tuna
The origins of spaghetti are murky, with sources placing the first record of dried pasta in the 5th Century Talmud, and the long, thin forms we are familiar with today originating in 12th Century Sicily, with pasta having been introduced to Europe by way of Arab conquest. Similarly, the original pantry pasta, alla puttanesca, sees some debate about its beginnings. While some stories draw a link from its name to the Italian word for a lady of the night—“puttana”—a more widely corroborated story credits sugo alla puttanesca to one architect/nightclub owner Sandro Petti. Faced with a dearth of kitchen ingredients one night, Petti threw the dish together after being asked to “make any kind of garbage” or “facci una puttanata qualsiasi” by a hungry patron. Our version uses spaghetti extruded from a traditional bronze die, creating that prized porosity to better hold our sauce, made with the classic triple flavour-punch of olives, capers, and anchovies with homemade tomato passata. Fresh tuna is tossed in at the last moment as a finishing, which adds some heft to the dish.
Tordelli Lucchesi al Ragù
Origins: Lucca, Tuscany (Central)
Egg pasta stuffed with pork, beef, mortadella, soffritto, cheeses, breadcrumbs, swiss chard, and eggs. Served in a meat sauce.
While some pastas have unclear origins, tordelli – also called “tortelli” in other areas of Tuscany including Mugello and Pistoia – can trace its origins to the 1700s and a distant, linguistic lineage from small, stuffed pies found in the Middle Ages called torta. Tordelli are part of the gastronomic heritage of Lucca and Versilia, where the Tyrrhenian meets the Tuscan coastline. Typically formed into half-moon shapes with a mezzaluna stamp and crimped at its edges, tordelli’s fillings vary from household to household. Ours’ includes mixed meats, mortadella, parmigiano and pecorino cheeses, and swiss chard – the lattermost is a typical addition that Lucchesi tordelli shares with the tortelli of neighbouring Liguria, which often includes green or herbaceous components. Traditionally sauced with a ragu of minced beef and pork, stock, white wine, and tomato puree, making each bite a hearty, unforgettable affair.
Lorighittas al Sugo di Polpo
Origins: Morgongiori, Oristano, Sardinia (Islands)
Semola-based short pasta with a sugo of octopus, tomatoes and shellfish stock
Every year on November 1st, women would gather in kitchens across the Sardinian village of Morgongiori to knead semolina and water to braid the dough that would become the pasta that is lorighittas, in celebration of All Saints’ Day. Named after the iron rings once fixed to the walls of homes to tether working animals, the word ‘lorighittas’ loosely translates to the Sardinian word for ears. A fading art, making lorighittas involves wrapping and then braiding two thin threads of dough to form a ring (‘sa loriga’ in Sardinian). Today, this endangered ring or ear-shaped pasta is handmade by no more than 10 women in the Sardinian village of Morgongiori, and only when the season calls for it. As perhaps an homage to the island, our lorighittas is paired with the gifts of the island’s surrounding seas — a sugo of octopus, tomatoes and shellfish stock.
Rigatoni Lisci con Sugo alla Norma
Origins: Catania, Sicilia (Islands)
Bronze extruded short pasta with a Sicilian eggplant-tomato sauce, basil and ricotta salata
Is a rigatoni without ridges still a rigatoni? In eastern Sicily, the rigatone lisce proves its own identity, made by extruding pasta dough from a bronze die. Unlike its industrially made cousins with ridges that help sauces cling to its tubular body, this voluptuous iteration holds sauces just as well, thanks to its porosity. Catanian folklore lends inspiration to this dish — one involving an opera house named Norma by Vincenzo Bellini, and the other, an artist’s lunch by a Lady Marietta which he claimed was absolutely “norma”, or marvelous in Catanese. Whichever the story, this rustic summertime plate is the flagship dish of Catania.
Be part of our Journey
Join our mailing list to stay up to date with our latest promotions, menus and much more.
