Pastito: The Pasta Project: Experiencing perfect pasta in Jerusalem - review

Appearances can be deceptive – especially in restaurants with digital menus which feature photographs of what diners can expect to receive. What may look very appetizing on screen, often turns out to be a disappointment. A hot dish turns out to be cold. A cold dish taken out of the freezer has not yet defrosted – or the taste is nothing to write home about.

Most pasta, pizza, and dairy restaurants have very similar menus, but there is often a vast difference in the taste of dishes that carry the same name but are not of the same quality.

The sign over the window in Jerusalem’s Ben-Yehuda Pedestrian Mall reads “Pasta Machine” in large letters. Indeed, there is a pasta-making machine taking up a lot of window space. But any curious passerby may notice that at the end of a short passageway, there is a bare glimpse of tables and chairs that indicate that this may also be a restaurant.

Until one actually goes inside, it’s not certain that the bright yellow chairs around tables outside belong to this particular establishment, as an increasing number of eateries proliferate the Ben-Yehuda mall and its adjacent side streets, with tables and chairs spread out all over the place.

The restaurant is a pasta parlor with three kinds of pasta – casarecce which are short noodles with a groove down the center; campanelle, which are cone-shaped with ruffled edges; and rigatoni, which are similar to macaroni, but ridged.

Sampling the pasta

There are 12 choices, ranging in price from NIS 39 to NIS 52.

I chose the Truffles Taruto (NIS 46), which the menu described as roasted mushrooms with porcini sauce, cream, truffles, butter, arugula leaves, and Parmesan. To be honest, I couldn’t detect the cream, which doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. But in most restaurants that serve pasta with mushrooms, the two main ingredients are almost drowning in cream. In this case, the sauce was delicate both in composition and application – and a joy to the palate.

The Jerusalem Post had a longtime restaurant reviewer by the name of Haim Shapiro, whose pet peeve was canned mushrooms. In this case, it would be safe to say they were fresh.

What was somewhat off-putting was the fact that the restaurant, known as Pastito, uses only disposables for serving. There were plenty of pots and pans stacked on a shelf behind the counter, but the pasta arrived not on a plate but in a throw-away tub accompanied by a plastic fork.

However the quantity was more than enough for two, and I was pleased that I had not ordered one of the three available salads – Caesar (NIS 44); Panzanella (NIS 39), and Tuna Niçoise (NIS 46), each with its own special dressing. It was difficult enough to finish the contents of the pasta tub; there simply wasn’t room for any more.

A well-stocked refrigerator containing water, soft drinks, a variety of fruit juices, fuze tea, and an assortment of beers is in the dining area, where customers can take their time in choosing what they want to drink. Here the prices range from NIS 9 to NIS 16.

The premises are staffed by three young men who appeared to be Orthodox. They wore black velvet kippot, and one of them had ritual fringes peeping out from beneath his white T-shirt.

They were pleasant and polite, and service was quick.

They speak English as well as Hebrew, and may even speak Italian, as some of the ingredients are imported from Italy. The restaurant advertises itself as being “for real people,” and the food tubs have printed on the side “more pasta less drama.”

Among the other 11 offerings is Pastito Bolognese, made with vegan meat, tomato sauce, Parmesan, and fresh basil. Another is Carbonara Salmon, comprising smoked salmon, spinach, sweet potato, Parmesan, cream, black pepper, and, of course, the pasta of your choice.

• Pastito: The Pasta Project
• 14 Ben-Yehuda Street
• Jerusalem
• Tel: (02) 532-8823
• Kashrut: Mehadrin Jerusalem Rabbinate

The writer was not a guest of the restaurant.