Restaurant Review: The Joys of Pasta Casalinga

Michela Tartaglia of the venerable Pike Place Market eatery Pasta Casalinga has a new cookbook worth checking out called A Pasta for All Seasons.

I love the Casalinga menu - two rotating weekly specials, lasagna and pasta marinara and that’s it. You know you’re in a good restaurant when the menu is that brief. One of this week’s specials is orecchiette with crumbled spicy Calabrian sausage and rapini. Wow!

The restaurant business is tough and usually you need a side hustle or need to be rich to survive - especially if you’re running a tiny place in the Pike Place Market with it’s limited hours of operation. Tartaglia grew up on her family’s olive farm in Italy and travels there often so maybe she has money. Casalinga does catering. And they now have dried pasta available in local supermarkets, which is also not exactly a license to print money.

Does any of that matter though? The food here is great and we’re lucky to have her in Seattle.

—Alex