A Survey of the City’s Elaborate Pasta Shapes

The last time you went out for your weekly linguine appointment, you may have noticed some unfamiliar noodles on the menu. “Sopre-huh?” “Mallor-what?” New York is in the throes of a pasta boom, with chefs clamoring to find obscure shapes and sometimes even inventing them. “It’s like Play-Doh, right? It’s a dough that we can do anything with,” says Vic’s chef Hillary Sterling. “There are endless possibilities of pasta.” This rush of innovation is being driven in part by increased knowledge of regional Italian cooking, but the internet’s influence is also at play: YouTube makes research easier while Instagram encourages finding foods that stand out. However, no budding pasta geek’s library is complete without a copy of the Encyclopedia of Pasta, which Lilia and Misi pasta savant Missy Robbins says “became a bible” for her kitchen. If you’re more the eating type, here’s a primer on niche pastas around town.

1. Torcia

Where: Osteria Morini, 218 Lafayette St.
The torch-shaped pasta hails from somewhere in Italy, but that’s about as specific as it gets.

2. Pici

Where: Fiaschetteria Pistoia, 647 E 11th St.; Café Altro Paradiso, 234 Spring St.; L’Artusi, 228 W. 10th St.
This hand-rolled peasant pasta is hearty in the traditional Tuscan manner.

3. Casoncelli

Where: Benno, 7 E. 27th St.; Leonti, 103 W. 77th St.; Morandi, 211 Waverly Pl.; ViceVersa, 325 W. 51st St.
These often-gondola-shaped ravioli are associated with the towns of Bergamo and Brescia.

4. Occhi

Where: Misi, 329 Kent Ave., Williamsburg; Vic’s, 31 Great Jones St.
Appropriately shaped like UFOs; it’s not clear where — if anywhere — these delicate stuffed pastas (introduced here by Sterling) come from.

5. Sopressini

Where: Don Angie, 103 Greenwich Ave.
A real fringe pasta, at best, that’s also called borsa vuota (“open purse”), this one has an origin story as murky as reused pasta water.

6. Malloreddus

Where: Arco Café, 886 Amsterdam Ave.; Misi, 329 Kent Ave., Williamsburg.
The “national Sardinian pasta,” according to Arco Café’s Daniele Fiori, it’s made by pressing the dough against a woven basket.

7. Cappellacci

Where: I Trulli, 124 E. 27th St.; Legacy Records, 517 W. 38th St.
These eggy ravioli are the signature starch of the northeastern city of Ferrara, where they come pumpkin-stuffed; elsewhere they’re made to look like a cone-shaped hat.

8. Lumache

Where: Carmenta’s, 50 Starr St., Bushwick; Scampi.
Named after snail shells, this pasta, produced for centuries in Gragnano, Campania, is now found all over.

9. Corzetti

Where: Misi, 329 Kent Ave., Williamsburg; Trattoria Italienne, 19 W. 24th St.
This Ligurian pasta traditionally gets stamped, like Madonna cookies, and was a kind of status brag in medieval times. (A modern variant includes the Grateful Dead logo.)

10. Gigli (or Campanelle)

Where: Barano, 26 Broadway, Williamsburg; Colonie, 127 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn Heights; Morandi, 211 Waverly Pl.
Shaped like a type of lily, these may be of Tuscan origin.

11. Fazzoletti

Where: Faro, 436 Jefferson St., Bushwick.
You may be tempted to wipe your chin with one of these Northern Italian handkerchiefs, but its simple shape belies the difficulty of making a pasta so thin it’s nearly see-through.

12. Radiatori

Where: Zero Otto Nove, 2357 Arthur Ave., The Bronx.
There’s debate over whether this stubby pasta — named, oddly, after radiators — was invented between the two World Wars or in the 1960s.

13. Malfadini

Where: Lilia, 567 Union Ave., Williamsburg; Locanda Verde, 379 Greenwich St.; Leuca, 111 N. 12th St., Williamsburg.
These Naples noodles were supposedly dreamed up in 1902 to honor Princess Mafalda, or were renamed for her.

14. Borsa

Where: Vic’s, 31 Great Jones St.
“Purse,” in English, this is Sterling’s effort to design a four-cornered ravioli that stands up.

15. Alisanzas

Where: Arco Café, 886 Amsterdam Ave.
Fortified with lard, this one varies in shape throughout Sardinia and is served with ragù or an oil-cheese sauce.

16. Culurgiones

Where: As a special at Don Angie, 103 Greenwich Ave.; and L’Artusi, 228 W. 10th St.
These dumplings, braided on top, originated in Ogliastra, Sardinia, and were made individually for major religious holidays.

17. Estrella

Where: Upland, 345 Park Ave. S.
“We kind of just made it up,” admits Justin Smillie of his signature pasta, a happy accident that resulted from stumbling onto a star-shaped die.

18. Caramelle

Where: Barano, 26 Broadway, Williamsburg; Don Angie, 103 Greenwich Ave; Faro, 436 Jefferson St., Bushwick.
Shaped like a candy wrapper, these cute ravioli are praised for their dough-to-filling ratio and are likely from Emilia-Romagna.

Additional reporting by Yelena Dzhanova.

*This article appears in the February 18, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!