The Pasta Factory

Shudehill, Manchester

The Pasta Factory: ‘fresco, tradizionale, Italiano’. That’s ‘fresh, traditional, Italian’ to you and I. It’s an independent Italian restaurant which specialises in fresh, homemade, authentic pasta. Their mission is to ensure all customers enjoy the best plate of pasta they can possibly create.

Pasta is one of my all-time favourite foods. There’s so much you can do with it, there’s always a new recipe waiting to be discovered. A dish of pasta at a top quality Italian restaurant is one of the best dining experiences you can have. With so many high-end Italian restaurants in Manchester City Centre, including Rosso and Piccolino, there’s a lot of competition.

The Pasta Factory has a very authentic interior. It’s nothing special, with wooden tables and an open kitchen, with the various varieties of the freshly prepared pasta on display. There are no table cloths, just paper place settings adorned with the logo. The leather chairs are looking rather tatty and desperately need replacing.

It’s a fairly limited menu, with half a dozen starters and a few more main courses, as well as a specials board and a range of wine recommendations.

We ordered two starters and sampled each of them in turn. One of them was the weekly special, Salt Cod Fritters. The fried balls of cod were tasty enough but a little bit dry. They needed a dip to accompany them. The side salad was very basic, little more than a few lettuce leaves. It was limp and lacking dressing.

Salt Cod Fritters

Our second starter was Panelle Con Salsa Rustica. Panelle is a traditional street food made from chickpea flour. Despite originally being of Arab origin, they are popular in Palermo, where they are often eaten inside a bread roll, like a sandwich. Here, they were topped with a salsa made of tomatoes, spring onions, capers, olives, green chillies and fresh herbs, drizzled with cashew cream. They made for a very light starter. Without the salsa, I can imagine they’d be very dry and bland. Both starters were £7.50, which was steep for what they were.

Panelle Con Salsa Rustica

For main course, I had ‘Triangoli di Funghi in Salsa al Tartufo’: triangular green ravioli filled with mushrooms, garlic, parsley and cashews. It was very flavoursome, but the texture of the ravioli was a little hard. To me, it tasted like it needed cooking for longer in order to make it just that little bit softer. Alas, I’m no expert and I trust the chefs at a place called The Pasta Factory to get it right, it’s just a case of personal preference. It was dressed in a black truffle and porcini sauce, which was rich and creamy, topped off with a piedmont black truffle.

Triangoli di Fungi in Salsa al Tartufo

It was a very small portion; I was trying to eat it slowly in the hope of making it last. More ravioli was definitely needed for £13.50. Black truffles are very expensive, but even so, there wasn’t enough pasta for the price.

My dining companion had ‘Gemelli Con Copanata Di Verdure’: pasta twists with a medley of vegetables including peppers, aubergines, zucchini, peppers and onions tossed in extra virgin olive oil with sage and rosemary. This was a better portion size than my ravioli and looked very colourful, tasty and appealing, but it was still £11.00, which is too expensive for a vegetable pasta dish.

Gemelli Con Cpaanata Di Verdure

Both the main courses were vegan friendly.

I noticed that we weren’t offered any parmesan to top our spaghetti. To me, this seems like an alien concept, as any Italian restaurant in this country readily throws varying quantities of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano on top of any pasta dish. However, this is a mythical custom which isn’t actually a part of Italian culture, but has become the norm just about everywhere else.

I was nowhere near satisfied after my two courses, so I had to sample something from the intriguing dessert menu. I had ‘Ravioli di Cioccolato Mandorle E Amaretti’: satin chocolate ravioli filled with almonds and amaretti biscuits, served warm with orange cream and sprinkled with toasted pine nuts. Okay, so a little bit of forward planning in order to avoid two rounds of ravioli might have been a good idea, but – if you’ll pardon the expression – it was a case of ‘when in Rome’.

It was a rather strange concept that tricked your taste buds. The texture was the same as that of a savoury ravioli. The amaretti and almond filling meant that the chocolate flavour wasn’t overly sweet. I was expecting the ‘orange cream’ to be orange flavoured whipped cream, but instead it was pouring cream. A thicker cream would have complemented the ravioli better.

Ravioli di Cioccolato Mandorle E Amaretti

When it comes to the overall verdict, the jury is still very much out. It was unique, it was tasty and it was different, but I’m not sure I’d jump at the chance to have it again.

The Nutella Cannoli were delicious. The pastry shells were delightfully crispy and airy and there was ample filling.

Nutella Cannoli 

I couldn’t fault the service; the food arrived quickly and the staff were friendly and attentive. The interior looks a bit shabby and is screaming out for a revamp. The tables are far too close together; you feel like you’re sat on top of the people at the adjacent tables, you’re even able to hear their conversations.

If, like me, you’re a pasta lover, then The Pasta Factory is a dining experience I’d encourage you to try. It’s authentic, fresh and tasty, but the portion sizes definitely need to be increased and the prices reduced slightly. It was expensive for what it was and you can definitely get better pasta elsewhere.

Website: http://www.pastafactory.co.uk/

Email: mgfoodie100@gmail.com