A conversation with chef Dawn Wilson of Vicini Pastaria in Lafayette Square

At the new pastaria, Wilson dons many hats.

by

After a stint as a research scientist, St. Louisan Dawn Wilson (who holds a master’s degree in molecular genetics) traded white coats and started a personal-chef business. An impulsive trip to Italy confirmed her career choice, and Wilson now owns and operates Vicini Pastaria in Lafayette Square, where she makes fresh pasta; teaches classes; caters events; and runs a cozy, 16-seat weekend lunch café. 

Are you a native St. Louisan? If so, you know the next question. [Laughs.] I went to Cor Jesu [Academy], then attended college in Chicago, where I remained for 20 years.

Did your college degree relate to the hospitality industry? Not in the least. My bachelors was in biology and my Masters in molecular genetics. I wanted to become a research scientist, which I did.

When did your culinary journey begin? I’d always been a passionate cook. I loved the Food Network. I loved entertaining. I never considered it as a career path. But my path to science left me a little lost—the progress was so slow and the discoveries so minute and far between that I lost my motivation. It wasn’t like the immediate gratification that you get in the food industry.

Did any of your scientific training apply to the food business? When learning certain cooking techniques, having that background was helpful. If you know the chemical process of how and why you whip egg whites, you’re better equipped to conduct a baking class, for example. The step-by-step process of going through a recipe is very similar to running an experiment. [Laughs.] But the results are a little tastier.  

How did your food career progress? While still working full time in the lab, I worked part time at several restaurants in Chicago, then started a personal-chef company, A New Dawn, doing weekly meal programs, which led me to my first full-time culinary job at Whole Foods. I set up the cooking-school program and taught all the classes while still balancing the personal clients I had. That was a pivotal point in my career, not dissimilar to what I’m doing today.

Didn’t you have to give up quite a bit financially, switching from research scientist to chef/instructor? Not really. Science does not pay well, especially in academia at a university. Now if you work for a pharmaceutical company, that’s a different story. 

How long did the Whole Foods job last? Several years, but eventually there were cutbacks and they were going to eliminate the cooking school, so I proposed I take it over as my own business, under their roof. They accepted, which was an awesome deal for me, since they didn’t charge me rent, they just took a percentage of the profits, and I got all the food at cost. After a few years, they wanted to expand another department and eliminated the program, at which point A New Dawn became fully mobile, so I was cooking in people’s homes as well as conducting cooking classes, which I still do.  

But somehow you ended up in Italy. I really like cooking both Italian and Mexican food and wanted to explore a different type of cuisine. I had been to Mexico several times but had never been overseas. Then I happened upon this slow food program in Siena, Tuscany, one that taught its students language for a time before sending them out to work in restaurants, covering room and board in exchange for their efforts, I signed on, especially when I discovered it was a lot easier to get a student visa versus a work visa. 

Sounds like a worthwhile program. It was. Looking back, I can’t believe I hopped on a plane and embarked on a four and a half month journey that was completely out of my comfort zone. 

How’s your Italian? [Laughs.] Then, it was pretty good. That kind of immersive experience teaches you a language very quickly, which helped me a lot while I was there.

So are you now making pasta in the authentic style, using only Italian ingredients? I use Italian flours and oils, though I have been dabbling with some local flours. One thing that stuck with me involved pairings. Italians are very serious about pairing the right sauce with the right pasta, and I learned it does make a difference. The mouthfeel of a certain shape might go well with a certain ragù or pesto, for example, whereas another shape might not. Italians also tend to be hyper local, using the products grown or produced nearby. It’s a long-ingrained philosophy that I also try to incorporate as much as I can.

What else did you learn there that you could not have learned here? That I loved the culture that surrounds food there. That it’s important to enjoy life, to slow down, to spend time with friends, family, neighbors. Meals are hours long and never hurried. There’s no rushing—here, there, and everywhere—like Americans tend to do. It’s a healthier way to live, physically and emotionally.

Were you a pasta aficionado before the trip to Italy? I had taught myself how to make fresh pasta and had been teaching pasta-making classes. In Italy, the first thing I learned is all the pasta shapes that you never see here, hundreds and hundreds of them, some with multiple names, depending on the region.

How else did Italy influence your culinary style? In Italy, it’s not about being fussy or pretentious or a dish having 30 ingredients. It’s a “less and more” thing…less ingredients, but more thought and care and time. My favorite dish is pici cacio e pepe, which has precious few ingredients: the pici noodle, some cheese, black pepper, really good extra virgin olive oil, a little of the pasta water, and maybe some toasted bread crumbs on top. That’s the dish that typifies Italian cooking and their cooking philosophy.

But you really like the pici noodle. Yes, I became fixated on pici, probably because making that noodle was my job at the restaurant in Tuscany, before and after service. Each strand is rolled by hand, and I was slow, very slow, like five portions in an hour. But I learned. I got better and faster. On my last day, the chef and I had a pici-rolling contest. I lost, but only by two strands, which was a win for me.

Pici is not as well known in St. Louis as other pasta shapes. It’s simply a fatter spaghetti that I call “perfectly imperfect” because of the hand-rolling, so some parts are thinner, others thicker. You can experience tender and firm texture in the same strand, which is the part that appeals to me and others. After trying it, some people tell me it’s become their new favorite pasta. We prepare it cacio e pepe-style, but it also holds up to a hearty ragù, like other spaghetti noodles do.

After your trip to Italy, you returned to Chicago. I resumed my personal-chef business, but I had fallen in love with the tavola calda, the casual, family-run, very homey shops you see all over Italy that put out made-from-scratch, grab-and-go foods throughout the day. That was the rough template for Vicini, but opening up a brick-and-mortar—especially in Chicago—was daunting. So I started a less risky pasta-making business and sold them at farmers' markets. I thought if I could build a following, that would be the backbone for the storefront. I also hosted pop up dinners that I called Cena Con Amici—dinner with friends—that would have the same effect. All the while, I was searching for a storefront, but Chicago kept getting more and more expensive.

So then it was it “Hello, St. Louis”? St. Louis had changed so much culinarily in the 20 years I’d been gone, so I decided to test the waters, working the farmers’ markets while catering in Chicago and St. Louis, which was a little insane. It made the most sense to come back here, where I hit the farmers’ markets hard with my fresh pastas and sauces, as well as gluten-free desserts, which my mom had been making at and for The Women’s Exchange.

Is that a sustainable business plan? No, it’s not profitable enough to do forever. My goal was to build as big a following as possible before opening a storefront, so passively I was looking for a space. It took me a year and half to find one, and I fell in love with Lafayette Square. St. Louis is a driving town, and Lafayette Square is more of a walking neighborhood, which is what I wanted, a place where passersby could see me making pasta in the window. And it was my mom who found the place, while shopping at Forrest Gallery, which occupied the space at the time.

Talk about the space. The tiered, crystal chandelier is the focal point… It’s a conversation stopper when people look up and take it in, and a conversation starter as I explain how it fits in with the Italian-esque touches. There’s stained glass, which we think evokes some Venetian opulence, and a stone wall we added, like you might see in Tuscany. It’s small and cozy—16 seats—but we can do 20 for a seated dinner and 27 for a reception-style event.

The décor contributes to the coziness of the space. That credit goes to my mom, who owns Reminisce Décor and decorated the shop with antiques, collectibles, and fun knickknacks. She has booths at several of the antique galleries around town and hits the estate sales, so we incorporated some of those things in the space. And she’d want me to remind you that it’s all for sale: the vintage pieces, that table, your chair—all of it. I didn’t inherit her sense of style, so we’re a good team.

How many different styles of pasta do you make? I’ve probably made 30, six or so at any one time, a mix between the hand rolled—like the pici; stuffed—like tortelloni, ravioli, and agnolotti; and fresh cut pastas—like tagliatelle, tagliolini, and pappardelle. A lot of the time it’s just what I feel like making. Not knowing what I might make that day is fun for me. 

Vicini sells both fresh and fresh frozen pastas. As well as fresh and frozen homemade pasta sauces. Most of the stuffed pastas cook up better if they’re frozen, but all of our pastas freeze really well. You don’t have to thaw them, either. They go straight from the freezer into boiling water and only take a few minutes to cook. Fresh pastas have to be the fastest frozen-to-plated food there is.

What’s your favorite sauce? Probably the brisket mushroom ragu, which is a variety of mushrooms along with slow braised brisket and short ribs, so it’s more shredded than a ground meat sauce and goes really well with pici. We do a lot of pestos, too, like arugula/basil/almond and pea shoot/mint pesto, which is vegan and nut free. But my favorite is Pesto alla Trapanese, which is a Sicilian red pesto with more of a tomato than an herbal base, but there is a little bit of mint in there, too. To me, it’s special and unique.   

What else is available at Vicini? We might have things like Tuscan meatballs and porchetta that are ready to serve along with your pasta. The case is like a mini deli, so you’ll see both Italian and local meats—like prosciutto, mortadella, and some Volpi products—and both Italian and local cheeses. Italian and local, that’s kind of a theme for us.

Vicini also makes all its own bread. We make a bread for our panini in house—a Tuscan-style focaccia called schiacciata—that’s a little crispier and chewier than standard focaccia. That’s my boyfriend Chaat’s passion. He bakes all the bread.

Your panini are not pressed. Why? That’s a bit of a misnomer. In the states, we think of a panino as a pressed sandwich, but in Italy, that word just means sandwich. That’s not to say we won’t do some pressed sandwiches at some point, but right now our panini are served at room temp. We recently added the Piccante, with spicy sopressata, fontina, Volpi’s spicy capocolla, calabrian chile, roasted red pepper pesto, marinated grilled eggplant, artichoke-olive crema, and arugula on housemade schiacciata.

What else is on the lunch menu? It’s a simple menu. There’s the pici; three or four panini; and then specials and sides, like a stuffed pasta and insalata ai tre fagioli, three-bean salad.

What days are Vicini open? It was never my intention for Vicini to be a seven-days-a-week restaurant, so right now, it's just Friday through Monday. I keep it limited so I can be available for private events; cooking classes; and cena con amici (dinner with friends), which I do several times a month.

Talk about cena con amici. I started it in Chicago and continued it here, first at The Woman’s Exchange, which let me host them, and then at Vicini, 16-seat dinner party at a communal table with family-style food. Most guests aren’t friends but I want to say become friends over the course of the evening. 

Does Vicini have a liquor license? Not yet, but we’ve applied for it, which is a six-month process now. We’d like to sell wine by the glass and by the bottle and craft beer, which fits the vibe, then maybe offer aperitivos on Friday nights.

What makes Vicini unique? Vicini has an eclectic range of offerings for sale in a small, homey, rustic—and, in some ways, Old World—space. You can hang out for hours or not hang out at all. You can buy a lovely mirror or a platter and some panini to put on that platter. It came out exactly the way I wanted it to be. “Vicini” means “neighbors.” The place feels like it belongs here.

At present, Vicini’s retail store is open Friday through Monday from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Lunch is served Friday through Monday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Sign up for St. Louis Magazine's 'Dining In' and 'Dining Out' newsletters to keep up with the latest in the local restaurant and culinary scene.
Or, check out all of our newsletters.