Learning to Make Pasta in Rome

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While convincing my partner we that should book a week-long trip to Rome using Groupon Getaways, I used his birthday in early March as a great excuse to take a trip. Then of course I had to figure out how to make the day of his birthday in the middle of our trip special, and what better way to celebrate than learning to make pasta? We love our eating adventures and were looking forward to all the delicious food while we were in Italy.

I had done some prior research and settled on a Pasta Cooking Class Experience in Rome through Viator for the 5:00pm dinner option (you can also choose a lunch time) at Ristorante Pasquino which is tucked away in Piazza di Pasquino near Piazza Navona. That evening we struggled for a few minutes to locate the restaurant, but we had already had a long day so that probably contributed.

Starting Off Right

Upon our arrival at the restaurant, we were each handed a glass of prosecco as an apertivo and shown to our table where would be eating dinner after our class. Enjoying the sparkling wine, we waited a few minutes for our instructor to finish with his prior class of a family making pizzas. 

Donning the aprons and hats provided to protect our clothes from all the flour we were about to be working with, we went over to the table we’d be working at for our class and met our chef and instructor for the evening, David. He was very knowledgeable and gave us a bit of a lesson on Italian cuisine including some history of how various regions of the country developed their unique dishes. Although the experience through Viator allows for groups up to 15, we were the only two people learning to make pasta this particular evening which suited us just fine.

Time to Learn to Make Pasta

The recipe to make the pasta dough is ridiculously simple to learn consisting of semolina flour, egg, and a pinch of salt. We each measured out our ingredients and mixed it all together to form the dough. Once we had the dough mixed together on the table, it was time to start kneading the dough. It sounds a little violent, but there is a technique to it.

Our chef, David, was clearly well practiced and made the motion of folding the dough over and kneading it together look natural and effortless. It took us a bit more practice to manage it at all, and we were still not nearly as smooth as the professionals. The dough then needs to rest for a bit before starting on the next step of the process.

After the dough has had its rest, it’s time to start rolling it out. The chef frequently checked on our progress with the dough and gave us tips for getting it to the right shape and thickness. As we were going to be making long noodles, we needed to get it into a long rectangular shape. 

Making Big Decisions

Then we had the vital question posed to us regarding what kind of sauce each of us wanted on our pasta for our dinner. Not ever having had much education on Italian cuisine until this class I had never realized that there was a rhyme or reason why different sauces and pastas were usually served together.

Heavier sauces (for example bolognese) require a wider, heavier noodle (like a pappardelle) to carry them and balance the flavors. Whereas light, delicately flavored sauces should be paired with a thin noodle (like capellini aka angel hair), or they risk being overwhelmed by the flavor of a heavy noodle. This is especially important with fresh pasta since the egg in it gives it more flavor than most dried pastas you buy at the grocery store.

Armed with this new knowledge, we made our sauce selection for our dinners. I chose a hearty bolognese while the birthday boy picked carbonara, the Roman specialty which had quickly become one of his favorites during our time in the Eternal City. We then were shown how to roll up our sheets of dough so that we could easily slice it into the proper width to create the noodles for our entrees. Once we finished slicing apart our noodles, David showed us how to properly swirl them into little piles which we lightly sprinkled with flour to prevent sticking. That was the conclusion of our lesson and David took down my email address to send the photos they had taken throughout our experience learning to make pasta. 

Now to Enjoy

Now it was time to sit back down at our table to enjoy our meal accompanied by a glass of wine. While we devoured bruschetta as our antipasti, the restaurant cooked our pasta with the sauces we had selected. Perhaps our pasta making skills weren’t up to the level of our instructor, but we were so proud of ourselves and too excited about eating the pasta we had just made by hand to care! Squisito! (use your imagination to insert me making a silly finger kissing hand motion here)

Once we were done savoring our pasta and patting ourselves on the back, our secondi course of saltimbocca, meatballs, and a small salad was served. By the time we got to dessert, it was hard to imagine eating more, but the tiramisu proved too tempting to resist. Our lovely dinner was brought to a close with glasses of limoncello as our digestivo.

A Birthday to Remember

As far as birthday celebrations go, this was a pretty damn perfect one for my partner. He was delighted to learn more about Italian cuisine and get his hands dirty learning to make it for himself. Add in the great dinner that followed along with the wine and it couldn’t get much better for him.

Ristorante Pasquino did follow through on their promise to email us photos and the pasta recipe along with links to leave them reviews. Overall we had an excellent experience with their pasta making class and dinner, especially since we were by ourselves.

Also I’ll say that we took learning to make fresh, homemade pasta seriously! After making it a few times at home with a rolling pin and knives like we did during this experience, we decided to invest in the pasta roller attachments for my Kitchenaid mixer. Every few months we head to the local Italian grocery for guanciale (cured pork cheek) and fresh grated pecorino Romano cheese to make his favorite carbonara from Rome as authentically as possible. 

Have you ever taken a cooking class when traveling?