Pasta Flyer left much to be desired. In Manhattan, there are plenty of places to get fast pasta in a flash and are really tasty (Fesco by Scotto To Go, etc.) and yes, they mix the sauce in a pan for you. The marinara and the alfredo sauce were as tasty as a jar of Classico from Gristedes. I've had better pasta at a buffet in Vegas.
1
Could you be any more condescending to the rest of us with this review? Most of us actually eat fast food once a week or so. There's nothing wrong with some fries or a salad from a chain.
My god are you all such elitists sometimes!
1
There is nothing to suggest Martina. The pizza was just above ordinary and the costs were absurd and there is no table service. The Diet Coke bottle was one size above the liquor bottles sold in coach and a glass of wine served in a glass cup was $7 and worth just a few gulps. The pizza itself was small and not very satisfying.
Walk a few blocks to Motorino one of the pizza places in town.
1
I love Pasta Flyer. It takes me directly to Rome for under $10 and in less than 5 minutes.
Would like to see Pete Wells look at other fast concepts. Pasta Flyer is somehow picking the most generic of Italian sauces (to say nothing of the fact that consumers seem to want more vegetables, grains, "whole foods" particularly at lunch. As a result, it already feels dated.
It's clear these concepts are going after the Chipotle crowd. How about looking at other restaurants in the same model-but different cuisines? Indikitch, for example, is one that I've been quite impressed with it given the format.
2
"it’s never been necessary for the people who run them to care about food.": rather disingenuous? I guess you needed it to set up your "porn" joke? To suggest that Burger King, McDonald's etc. don't care about food is ridiculous. You may not patronize them but lots of people do and which one they patronize is based on...the food they serve. No care behind the perfection that is a McDonald's french fry?
5
I agree. Felt like a cheap shot, disrespectful. Pete Wells should know better. So should the NYT editors.
5
"Everybody should be happy with the garlic dots, little fried puffs of choux pastry brushed with garlic butter. Like the browned slices of lasagna that you can eat with your fingers, they’re street-fair food from a more advanced civilization."
Don't you mean slides of focaccia instead of lasagna?
3
Interesting, but conflicting, concept: World class pasta served high school cafeteria style.
I have been to Pasta Flyer and was pleasantly pleased. For the price of one meal at Babbo (without wine), you can have a three-course meal for 2 plus a bottle of wine (which you can take home to eat if you want a more romantic evening). Just perfect for a Friday night after work when you don't want to cook or deal with the hassle of getting a table at a decent restaurant.
1
What an insightful article. The photos of the Alfredo sauce ladled generously over fettuccine and the fusilli with pesto is temptation at its finest.
However, I must confess, I don't know anyone who serves home-cooked meals on a plastic food tray with lace-pattern placemats. That photo looked more like a meal served in a hospital cafeteria or church Sunday social luncheon.
Also, comparing "successful fast food restaurants that have to be clean, efficient and consistent" to "watching a porn film to assess the work of the dialect coach" is so weird and a complete turn off for me. I don't think I'll ever be able to eat at any fast food restaurant again without that image in the back of my head.
4
@ Marge Keller Midwest
I agree with you. Serving "home-cooked meals on a plastic food tray with lace-pattern place-mats" is a serious transgression against the table etiquette and a sign of the Decline of Gastronomic Civilization of the West.
I agree with you. Serving "home-cooked meals on a plastic food tray with lace-pattern place-mats" is a serious transgression against the table etiquette and a sign of the Decline of Gastronomic Civilization of the West.
The Pasta Flyer seems like a very lame concept. Surely you could do fast casual pasta with more creativity than those four, ordinary dishes. I mean, sounds like it tastes good, but really why bother?
3
Try it. It is anything but ordinary. My friends and I are big fans - we followed Mark to Pasta Flyer from Del Posto.
Pete, I quite seriously think you need to specify, in every restaurant review, somewhere near "reservations required," whether or not the place takes cash.
4
"But the simple margherita is a bore."
That is troubling. Isn't it a basic requirement of an Italian style pizzeria to make a decent margherita?
6
If you notice in the photographs the pasta is served what looks like a glazed bowl. Tonight my fusilli with pesto was served in a cardboard bowl, fairly standard for fast food dining. I found the fusilli to be OK and not very hot temperature wise and I did not care for the pesto sauce and I kept tasting the cardboard bowl. I also tried the meatballs again just OK. Would I go back probably.
2
Hey, wasnt the Pasta Flyer idea on an episode of Top Chef a few years ago?
Yes, "Pasta Mama" Season 13 Episode 12. Same idea, more creative food on Top Chef.
1
This is fantastic news and congrats to Pete Wells for spreading the word. There's no shortage of high end, wallet draining restaurants. This is a trend that needs to be turbo charged.
Also, credit to Mr. Wells for his excellent writing. I particularly like this line - "hit me like a prescription opiate that had been specifically engineered for my opiate receptors." An important point regarding the current over reaction to the opiate crisis in denying pain medication to millions of people who need it, and are able to have normal lives thanks to it.
4
I would be happy to eliminate cash. What is it anyway but a stand in for value, only of paper instead of plastic? But I will use cash so long as banks take a percentage of every sale, and the surveillance state, (and who knows who else), can track my every movement, and food choice.
It would be a simple thing to have a card which you load up with value and spend like cash. It's done with gift cards. And, for those of you who are concerned with security, no one's ever hacked a ten dollar bill.
2
Do you suppose people with poor or no credit would be equally happy to eliminate cash? I think it’s far more likely they’d feel excluded.
2
Gosh, I really wish Pasta Flyer great success. I'm thinking that having a customer base that appreciates the food you're serving is the whole thing. Living out here at the End of Nowhere, that God-forsaken land more than 20 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, we had a "small-chain" place called Pasta Pomodora open in the local mall. The food was not the star quality of Pasta Flyer, but it was good in a not-overdone, Olive Garden sort of way. The place couldn't stay open ... heck, it had to compete with Chevy's Fresh Mex and In-n-Out Burgers.
5
we ate there when we visited the kids. they miss it.
Locol, take note.
3
Well's review of Martina and Mart don't exactly make me want to leap off the sofa and visit them, but they don't make me want to avoid them either if I find myself in their respective vicinities. But this is Wellsian classic: expecting those who run fast food places to care about food is "like watching a porn film to assess the work of the dialect coach."
7
If the Manhattan food snobs don't want what Ladner has to offer, he can come to Boston. At that price point, it would be a real gift to have such an unfussy lunch or dinner in this part of the world. Sounds like a place without attitude, a rarity in restaurants these days.
11
Amen. My takeaway from this article is to hope the chefs come to Boston. Thousands of people with college and grad school debt will happily patronize you, and won't write patronizing articles about you, either.
Sounds horrendous. Why would anyone go out of their way? I’ve eaten Mark’s wonderful food at Del Posto but that’s not what is being made here. So once again, if you don’t live in the area, then why bother?
Franchise?
1
They have plans to make it the Shake Shack of pasta if all goes well.
Two points-- not minor, but decidedly welcome:
1. Real Italian spaghetti chefs don't just pour or ladle his sauce on top of the pasta. Ladner properly takes the pasta and places it in a pan with the sauce, marrying the two together. A good plate of pasta should be one thing, not two.
2. Martina and Marta offer "pizza tonda" which is as described, thinner and crisper. (N.B. some mistakenly refer to this as Roman pizza which over simplifies things, since "pizza a taglio" is also Roman pizza, E.G. Gabriele Bonci's Pizzarium. Both are found in Rome.)
8
A friend got a pizza from Martina's soon after it opened. It was NOT worth the $13 for a mediocre pizza - and even though they don't take cash, there was still a considerable wait for the pizza to be ready.
PS: You have to admire the idiocy of a place that thinks you should be drinking CHAMPAGNE with your pizza!
9
I drink champagne with everything, including pizza.
10
Pete, can you you share the name of the dry pasta from Italy that you cook with at home?
17
You have to go to Tito’s Delicatessen on Arthur Avenue. Have one of their fabulous heros or hot dishes, then peruse the varied dried pasta section. When the friendly owner wanders over to say hello, ask him which brand is the best. He will tell you. Fortunately Whole Foods also sells it so you don’t have to travel to the Bronx to replenish.
1
I went to the restaurant today and happened to sit next to the team that sources the pasta. The brand is Monograno Felicetti and you can buy it at Eataly.
1
...so what brand are you talking about?
2
". . .they're street-fair food from a more advanced civilization."
No matter how good--or not--the restaurant in question may be, Pete Wells' writing gets four stars from me every time. His prose is to restaurant reviewing what Paul Bocuse's cooking was to restaurants. He's the best so far in a long line of NYT food writers.
14
I applaud a chef with the resume of Mr. Ladner for giving up the stars to bring good, well prepared food to a wider public at a more than fair price. When I was first introduced to Italian food my mentors in Italy told me their food was not meant to impress, more to satisfy and your guests at the table were as important as the food.
15
my favourite Japanese soba place has individual packs of frozen fresh noodles - you order regular or large, they grab the appropriate pack and drop it into a small wooden handled metal basket in the boiling water in front of them - shake it and let it sit for 30 seconds, then into the bowl and appropriate sauce and topping added - from cold to ready to eat in less than a minute.
And perfect al dente every time. Good and cheap as.
6
Wow, wish I had a plane ticket to NYC. This is the best kind of food!!! The older I get, the better simple and classic becomes. This article was delicious.
7
From Mr. Wells's article one can infer that Mr. Ladner had a call for a simpler cuisine and saw the light in fast food. Fast food is there to feed the hunger. But, it turns the stomach to think that pasta is made into the main ingredient. It is more demeaning than hamburgers with ketchup and tasteless vegetables.
1
Please stop commenting. Your comments continue to make zero sense and rank at the top of the annoying list. At least you didn't comment on the 'slides' this week.
Mark created this concept to scale up to multiple units--volume--that's the only way to make any money. It only works because of his name and rep as a pasta guru.
15
@ Oui chef NJ
Unable to oblige!
There are subjects, such as this one, about which "I cannot keep silent" (L. N. Tolstoy, 1908).
How on earth does the complex crisis of homeless individuals weave itself into this story? I imagine the good people at Pasta Flyer are striving to bring a good-quality fair-value meal to the general paying public, and not looking to be part of the social safety net. And that’s completely OK.
Paying by cash? Who needs it anymore?
2
There is nothing like plain, recognizable food cooked superbly well. Hats off to a chef who is not too posh for his customers.
26
In North Central West Virginia the Mountain State Brewery serves a wood-oven fired pizza that is wonderful -- serves three at least, around 14 bucks. Their beer is excellent. Obviously prices in big cities will always be higher, but this is one of the advantages of living in a more obscure locale.
2
American Flatbread in Waitsfield, VT. Watching them work the wood fired oven right in front of you. On a winter’s night, close enough to be warmed by the oven. Really good, whether it’s basic or one of their creative specials.
5
The fine print notes that Pasta Flyer doesn't accept cash. I've seen this in other inexpensive restaurants and assume it's a strategy to keep out the homeless and others who live on the margins and don't use credit cards. I wish the review itself had mentioned this policy, and I'd like to hear the restaurateur's rationale for it. I find it a dismaying trend.
33
The concept of electronic-payment only is simply to be more efficient and to save time. It doesn't make sense to have your pasta cooked in less than a minute and then wait 10-15 minutes for people ahead of you at the check-out to count out the bills and coins. This has nothing to do with the homeless.
26
As one of 'a certain age', I am firmly from the cash economy. On the other hand, I can now buy a coffee with a card, which was unthinkable even five years ago.
So cash-free is how it is going, and we might as well get used to it.
As for Pasta Flyer, it is everything that Pete says it is, and a little more besides. First, fans of Lupa have been fans of Mark Ladner for years (that would include me). Second, at this price point, ordinary punters will now be able to savor the delights of pasta cooked perfectly, sauced well, and served at three, four, five times the price elsewhere in NYC.
Bravo, chef.
18
@ Jade It is claimed that electronic payment is "more efficient" than cash, and saves time. I don't agree. With cash I take out a $20 -- the cashier puts in in the register and hands me $8.70 in change. End of story. With a card I have to put the card in a little machine [put it in right side up and right side forward], wait, type in my pin code, wait, agree that $11.30 is the right amount, wait, and then retrieve my card. This rigamarole might save the merchant some labor costs -- but it is less convenient for the customer -- for this customer, anyway. P.S. It sounded to me that Pasta Flyer was worth more than single star. It's difficult to see how it could be much better for the price -- or does the price disqualify it from a higher rating?
20
There used to be a place called Confetti Pasta in Midtown where you selected the pasta, the sauce, and any add-ons, and they tossed and served it to you in about a minute. It hung in there for quite a few years. Pasta Flyer sounds like its re-incarnation but with a better pedigree. That being said, a midtown location targeting the lunch crowd might've been a better geographical choice, agree that GV may not be the best proving ground for this concept.
13
I know the NYT has other food writers covering the cheaper places while Pete Wells reviews the fancier places more likely to have a maître d's, sommeliers, and pastry chefs.
But finally, a review by Pete Wells where there aren't more dollars than stars. The kind of place most New Yorkers are grateful to have around because the bill isn't being paid by a corporate account or a trust fund.
32