Food Tours · Tour

Two Pasta Shapes, One Sauce You Get to Choose

Three hours in a working restaurant on Via Giuseppe Zanardelli, a minute from Piazza Navona, with professional chefs rather than demonstrators. Everything is done by hand. You make the dough, rest it, roll it and take it two ways: cut into fettuccine, and rolled thin for ravioli that you fill with fresh ricotta and seal one by one. The ravioli are served with butter and sage, which is the treatment that leaves the filling nowhere to hide. The fettuccine are where you get a decision. You pick your sauce from a selection of classic Roman recipes, and the four that define the city all start from the same short list of ingredients: cacio e pepe is pecorino and black pepper emulsified with pasta water; gricia adds guanciale; carbonara adds egg; amatriciana swaps the egg for tomato. Learning which one you want is most of the education. The tiramisù is made from scratch too, yolks and sugar beaten pale, mascarpone folded in, savoiardi dipped in coffee for a count rather than a soak. Then you sit down and eat all of it as a meal, with wine or a soft drink, and an espresso or a limoncello to finish. A recipe book goes home with you covering the pasta, the tiramisù and the sauces served in class. Up to fifteen guests, taught in English, wheelchair accessible. Arrive ten minutes early: late arrivals miss part of it. Note that the sauces are prepared for you rather than made in class. Vegetarian, nut-free and alcohol-free options are available, and gluten-free pasta on request, though wheat flour is in the air throughout and the kitchen cannot be called contamination-free for coeliacs.