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When you know, you know.
We speak, of course, of the right time to open the doors of a new restaurant. Nowadays the smart owner often remains vague about any specific date, choosing instead to schedule a private party or a charity event, interspersed with a few diversionary "friends and family" nights and then maybe a soft opening shift or several. Then, when the time feels right--and often unexpectedly--the owner cracks a long-time-coming, confident smile and says "Let's go."
On Thursday night, Gerard Craft did just that at Pastaria. And said so right here:
Last week, Craft remained somewhat coy in a discussion with Sauce magazine ("With opening day for Gerard Craft’s newest restaurant Pastaria expected either next week or the following..."), then this week, after only a few live shifts and immediately following a private event, he opened 'er up to the public last night to anyone fortunate enough to be traipsing down Forsyth Blvd.
Pastaria officially opens for business at 5 p.m. today, closing both nights this weekend at 10 p.m (regular weekend closing time will be 11 p.m.). (Since the website is still under construction, be advised that Pastaria does not accept reservations. For more particulars at this time, call 314-862-6603.)
The 110-seat dining room is wide open and the ceiling tall, allowing for a memory wall of photos above the open kitchen (below left) and a collection of chef-autographed pizza peels along another (below right), ranging from Bill Cardwell's message--in Italian--that "hard work is the yeast that raises the dough" to a simple request from Andrew Zimmern to "Praise the Lard."
The menu is as Craft stated in this September 2012 SLM Q&A: short, sweet, straightforward, and inexpensive. There are eight wood-fired pizzas and the same number of homemade pastas, shapes to strings to stuffed; plus three entrees and an intriguing little array of soups, salads, and starters.
Pastaria's Pastry chef Ann Croy debuts with a trio of desserts and a rather unfussy freezer case (at left). Don't be fooled. The gelato therein is the epitome of a classic comestible, what SLM's Dave Lowry would call "Serious Food." Imagine the appropriate flavor intensity for Salted Caramel or a White Chocolate Toasted Almond, then amp up your expectation by about 25%. Ah, but the Goat Cheese gelato, not so; that flavor remains appropriately subtle.
The back of the menu hosts a spare but appropriate selection of wines, and draft, bottled, as well as canned beer. And if you look closely, shaded in a half-tone and discreetly placed in the lower-right corner, is a brief explanation and a pledge that doubles as a lure-back: "Pastaria belongs to the people who showed us around Italy and the people who invited us into their kitchens and their homes. The menu at Pastaria will tell their stories."
Chapter one of that menu is below. Write on...
