When I was growing up I would spend five nights a week up to my eyeballs in pasta. My mother owned a small chain of Italian delicatessens in Victoria called Bagga Pasta. Our family provided freshly made pastas to supermarkets, retail stores and restaurants. It was my minimum-wage, after-school job to bag every type imaginable. Id stand in front of a machine either mid-wifing five-spiralled fusilli, flabby rigatoni and two-inch penne (cleanly slicing out 11 at a time) or hand-nesting bag upon bag of ling, fett, spag until my gloved fingertips were stained yellow with eggy semolina.
Given that kind of repetitive exposure, youd think Id be reduced to apoplectic fits whenever I am confronted by a noodle, but on the contrary: the experience turned me into something of an addict. Ive long fetishized good quality, same-day fresh pasta.
I was therefore especially keen for the opening of Gastowns Vicino Pastaria & Deli last week. So keen, in fact, that I went on opening night with my wife and two kids and returned again a few nights later. Its seldom that I review a place that is barely past its zygote stage, but Vicino was a long time coming and I was confident enough in their readiness.
Its no secret that owner Bill McCaig is a bit of an exacting wonk when it comes to honouring his Italian heritage (hes Italian on his mothers side). Vancouverites got a good taste of his devotion to authenticity when he and his wife/partner Allison opened Nicli Antica Pizzeria on East Cordova St. last year (BCs first Vera Pizza Napoletana-certified restaurant), and with Vicino right next door, its hard to imagine the two of them aiming for anything less than equal excellence.
I found a large, bright, modern and airy looker front-loaded with scarcely 20 seats. The menu is hand-scripted (nice penmanship!) on butchers paper and pinned on the wall. Vicinos primary function will be as a delicatessen, but many of the retail shelves were only half stocked at the time of writing, with canned plum tomatoes, proper flour, olive oils, a selection of dried pastas, et cetera. Action had already heated up in the curving refrigerated glass case, however, where fresh pastas were crowding take home sauces, quality hams, jars of duck fat (mmm, duck fat!), and much more.
The noodles are made fresh daily in the massive, brand new kitchen. The staff fool around with types, prepping agnolotti and little mezzalunas, even gnocchi and the rarely seen picci (an udon-thick spaghetti). There are more 600 varieties to play with, so I expect theyll be having some fun as they go. (Mainstays like penne grow tiresome quickly, and the boredom soon begets exotics like conchiglione).
They run about five pasta dishes a day with contorni-like duck liver parfait, pork rillettes, and a perfunctory salad or two (one dressed in a lovely raspberry vinegar). The service is no nonsense and prompt, as is the cooking. Ive tried nearly all of the pastas theyve offered so far, and each one has been entirely satisfactory, which is to say good enough to slake my ingrained, trauma-borne pasta snobbery. The prices felt a little high in the $11 to $15 range, but thats likely because there was no liquor licence (yet) and its mostly a counter service operation. Still, you certainly get what you pay for.
If I were to single out a favourite, it would be whatever theyre serving with their basic plum tomato sauce, because its straightforward enough to not overshadow the quality of the noodle. The menu offers it with gnocchi, but I subbed in tagliatelle on my first visit and ricotta-stuffed mezzaluna on my second. The taste is amplified by fior di latte cheese and fresh basil picked from plants above the kitchen pass, but I imagine it would be bright and wonderful enough on its own as well.
The runner up would be the tagliatelle finished in a buttery porcini paste and decorated with peas and salty lashings of pecorino cheese. Despite the earthy flavour and dark khaki colouring like a proper, tomato-free Bolognese the texture of the sauce was whisper thin and velvety smooth, with only the occasional pea popping off the palate (the sweetness of which enveloped the saltiness of the cheese).
Bringing up the rear is a rigatoni littered with arugula and garbanzo beans, fatty inches of bacon and a healthy dusting of gremolata. This was an unapologetically rustic treat that applied itself diligently to our supplied side of mop bread. It was the most interesting of the sauces proffered. The only one that disappointed was a gently spiced tomato number with overly salted pork a real tongue-shrinker in need of a seasoning foil.
It may be early days, but I doubt those 20 seats I mentioned will often be vacant. It might be smart to get your licks in now. Since Vicino is clearly the real deal, the city will catch on quick.
