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VEGANUARY – 10 SURPRISING RESTAURANTS OFFERING PLANT-BASED DELIGHTS
13 January, 2019Read More
VEGANUARY, of course, is not just for January. Once you get the taste for plant-based treats you may choose to adopt that culinary lifestyle all year round or at least incorporate vegan dishes in a flexitarian diet long after all that fuss about Greggs’ vegan sausage rolls is a distant memory. Proof that all this stuff has gone mainstream is the easy availability of vegan dies on the menu (and we don’t mean from Greggs’ counter… THE PASTA FACTORY Vegan options have always been to the fore at this progressive operation, which makes its own fresh pasta – and has created its own vegan cheese. Go for the ravioli on the menu, either the earthy savoury, Triangoli de Funghi in Salsa al Truffo (filled with mushrooms, garlic, parsley and cashew and dressed with a black truffle and porcini sauce) or the silky chocolate dessert version, filled with figs & dressed in a creamy coconut sauce with coconut chips. You can also buy their Cibus Almondino artisan nut cheeses (four flavours) at Unicorn Grocery, Chorlton and On The Eighth Day on Oxford Road. Read full article: tasteofmanchester.com
The ultimate vegan guide to eating out in Greater Manchester
5 January, 2019Read More
The Pasta Factory, Manchester city centre
Keeping it in the family, like any good Italian restaurant, The Pasta Factory is wonderfully friendly and homely restaurant with a surprisingly high concentration of vegan options on the menu. Fresh pasta dishes doused in cashew or tomato based sauces garnished with nuts, truffle or even homemade vegan parmesan; there’s also the rich vegan chocolate ravioli or homemade vegan nut cheese board to finish. A pizzeria called Noi Quattro opened last August in the Northern Quarter and it has a similar approach to vegan ingredients and dishes.
Read full article HERE
CHRISTMAS AT THE PASTA FACTORY
21 November, 2018Read More
Three courses with optional wine flight. Vegan menu available Red cabbage, apple and ginger soup…scallop and prawn-filled ravioli…chocolate ravioli served warm with orange cream and toasted pine nuts… Beautiful food, superb wines, and a warm welcome. At The Pasta Factory in the Northern Quarter we take pride in giving you and your friends the perfect Christmas celebration. Our Natale menu serves up our favourite flavours of the festive season in Italy, in fresh, authentic dishes cooked from scratch with passion and care.
If good food is important at your Christmas celebration, and you want to try something a little different this year, why not join us? Read also: Manchester Confidential Article.Smoky speck and tremendous truffles; It’s autumn at The Pasta Factory
16 October, 2018Read More
IT’s fair to say that most people visit Italy during the summer time. When we think about the Italian food at that time of the year, it’s often salads with creamy mozzarella, sharing platters of cured meats, al fresco pizza and light pasta dishes washed down with chilled glasses of local vino.
But autumn is arguably the time of year when some of the best eating is done. It’s the time of harvest and abundance when ripe fresh fruits come into their own, olives are ready for picking and pressing, and there’s a bounty of wild food available including native mushrooms and the mighty truffle. Traditional dishes become more hearty and comforting – think regional variations on slow cooked wild boar stews, steaming risottos and rib sticking sausage and bean casseroles.
Artisan Vegan Cheese by The Pasta Factory
8 September, 2018Read More
Cibus Almondino artisan cheese was created by Paolo, Alberto and Elisa of The Pasta Factory in Manchester and marketed by Giulio of Delitalia. The cheese is sold at Unicorn Grocery and Eighth Day in Manchester and available at the San Carlo group of Italian restaurants in the city too. I have tried various artisan nut cheeses in the past, from Tyne Chease and Nutcrafter Creamery, so I was keen to try Cibus as a comparison.
There are four cheese flavours and once opened the cheese needs to be consumed within three days and I took them out of the fridge to allow them to room up. I tried them at lunchtime with Steven and took them to a non vegan friend’s house, who was hosting a dinner party, for the cheese course. My friend, a chef, has been diagnosed as lactose intolerant, but prior to that he was a real cheese buff, so the cheeses were thoroughly tested. The cheeses are perfectly formed, with a gorgeous smooth texture, easy to spread on crackers and packed with flavour. The problem with many vegan cheeses is lack of flavour and although I was never a big cheese eater in the past, when I did it would be strong mature flavours.
As someone who can eat raw chillies, I struggled to detect the chilli in the chilli cheese, but Steven said the chilli flavour was subtle, with a background heat, otherwise it would be overpowering.
The garlic in the garlic cheese was not too strong just the right amount, with the flavour building up, as you ate it.
The herb cheese was our least favourite, nothing to do with the product itself, just personal preference, it contained so many different herbs that worked well together.
The truffle cheese was my favourite, as I love truffles, it had a deep flavour and I could easily have eaten a whole one, whilst Steven loved the garlic.
Our friend was exceedingly impressed, with his favourite being herb, he loved the flavour and texture of the cheeses and commented that if you offered them to non vegans, they would be unable to distinguish them from dairy cheese.
I think Cibus cheeses are a luxury product, make a decadent vegan cheese board and are a real treat, I preferred them other artisan cheeses I have tried and could easily grace the vegan section in Waitrose. They are definitely not your every day vegan cheese and need to be appreciated and savoured, some nice chutney and a glass of red wine make a perfect partnership. The plastic packaging lets the product down I think, which I mentioned to Giulio, a small cardboard box and waxed paper would be more appropriate, like those Camembert are packed in.
Cibus also make a vegan Parmesan cheese, which sadly I cannot eat as I am allergic to the sunflower seeds it contains, but by all accounts it is an excellent product too. Disclaimer: I received free samples of these products and have not been paid for this review and all opinions are my own. Read more: Vegan Olive Follow CIBUS on Instagram Twitter & FacebookWhat? You haven’t been to The Pasta Factory yet?
31 August, 2018Read More
Well they certainly know their tagliatelle from their trottole
IT isn’t difficult to see why Manchester’s The Pasta Factory has been included in The Waitrose Good Food Guide as a local gem for the last couple of years. Despite its pool of writers and judges having to visit ‘the grittier bits of the NQ’, they really do love this Italian-run deli and restaurant on Shudehill. They love their slowly simmered sauces, lesser known (and all handmade) varieties of fresh pasta and boutique wine list.
“Italian people are too busy to make fresh pasta nowadays,” confesses Elisa Cavigliasso, one of The Pasta Factory’s three original owners, “but it’s very special and so very worth it.” So this is the deceptively simple idea behind their restaurant – every single day, the kitchen team prepares several batches of fresh pasta in various shapes, some rarely seen outside Italy.
Manchester’s pizza scene is about to get even better with Noi Quattro
4 August, 2017Read More
People queue for hours almost any night of the week for Rudy’s Neapolitan Pizza , while Honest Crust regularly sells out due to huge demand.
These two – together with Proove , Ply and Double Zero, depending on who you ask – are regarded as some of the best pizzerias in the city, but there’s a new restaurant set to launch in Manchester.
Noi Quattro will open in the Northern Quarter, and not content with just getting a slice of the action, manager Davide Rinaldi hopes it will be among the best in the city.
“Considering we are Italian… we strive for perfection, even though it’s not of this world” he says. “We will try to give a panorama of what a pizza should be like and is like in Italy.”
“It’s proper pizza, with proper products, cooked the right way.”
They have one simple rule for making the perfect pizza – and are planning on sticking to a tried an tested formula.
“Generally the rightful pizza is the Neapolitan way – that is cooked between 70 and 90 seconds, in high temperature wood fired pizza oven.
“The idea is to make proper Neapolitan pizza. We know better the pizza from the south and we’ll start with that and see where it goes.”
The team have already earned a reputation for great Italian food with their first venue The Pasta Factory – a small, homely restaurant which opened on Shudehill in 2015, and has received high praise from local critics.
Noi Quattro – which means ‘the four of us’ – will be run by the same directors of Pasta Factory; Daniele Bianculli; Elisa Cavigliasso; Paolo Gaudino; and Alberto Umoret.
Based in One Smithfield Square Building, 120 High Street, in the Northern Quarter, the pizzeria will have a modern interior, with the focus on on a dual wood and gas fired oven – although gas will only be used in real emergencies, Davide assures.
The full menu is still being finalised, but visitors can expect mostly Italian ingredients, and pizzas pitched at the same price point as Rudy’s and Ply, explains Davide.
And Pasta Factory fans can expect a similarly well curated wine list, if a little smaller.
“It’s all Italian beers – to help smaller and bigger Italian brewers to be known. There are some very good brewers in Manchester, it’s just that we want to be like Italian oriented, so we have Italian drinks as well.
He adds: “If people like pizza, they should give us a shot. As with pasta, there were places that served pasta but no one was doing what we wanted to do.
“We’re going to be doing something that no one is doing yet, and so as people who love pasta have appreciated us, we think people who love pizza with appreciate us too.”
Noi Quattro should be open by the end of September. www.noiquattro.co.uk
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/noi-quattro-manchester-pizza-pizzeria–13414046
A little bit of Little Italy: inside Manchester’s very own pasta factory
9 June, 2017Read More
Behind the scenes of one of the city’s latest pastificios to learn more about fresh pasta and bust a few myths
By Emily Oldfield – June 9, 2017
In case you haven’t noticed, the old bank building by Shudehill station is now an Italian restaurant turning out impressive fresh pasta meals for lunch and dinner and some of the most impressive starter boards around.
But it isn’t just the inventive dishes which set it apart from the rest. After all, there are more than 120 Italian eateries and pizzerias in Manchester.
It’s not just called The Pasta Factory. It is a pasta factory – a pastificio – and one of the few places which serve fresh pasta handmade every day using the traditional basic ingredients – flour and water.
It was launched by three young Italians – Elisa Cavigliasso, Alberto Umoret and Paolo Guadino, along with operations manager Davide Rinaldi – who grew up in Torino, Italy, went to the same school together, and moved to Manchester about four years ago.
“We tried to study the food market – which was really busy already – and we realised that a simple pastificio was lacking,” says Paolo, who is also a sports scientist and fitness coach for Manchester United.
“In Italy, and in Torino in particular, it’s really common to go out and eat fresh handmade pasta and, especially on Sundays or for particular events, to buy fresh pasta to cook at home and enjoy with the family.”
The Pasta Factory is just a stone’s throw from Ancoats, where many Italian immigrants settled in the late 1800s, giving the area the nickname ‘Little Italy’. Many of them opened shops and started their own businesses like making ice cream.
You won’t be surprised to know that Italy consumes the most pasta in the world – a massive 26kg of it per person per year (that’s the weight of an 8 year-old child – yes, we looked it up) – and over 300 types – so you can be sure you are in good hands here.
“Making fresh pasta is in our roots. We always had dried and fresh pasta at home when we were younger – but the difference in fresh pasta is the human touch. In Italy, fresh pasta is often a sign of a special occasion – so perhaps to celebrate a family visit or impress your girlfriend.”
The Pasta Factory day starts around 9 in the morning and ends at about 11.30pm. The restaurant opens to the public at midday.
If you thought fusilli and penne pasta were fancy, just wait till you try bucatini (like a thick spaghetti with a hole through the middle), reginette (pasta with a curly edge), and black spaghetti coloured with squid ink.
So which is the hardest pasta to make? “Ravioli by far,” says Davide, “because the filling needs to be made separately and reach the right temperature, plus two sheets of pasta need to be rolled, filled and divided.
“Gnocchi also has its difficulties. We wanted to get the type of potato we used to make it just right. Potatoes we are accustomed to using in Italy for gnocchi grow at a different humidity from those in Britain and therefore to find a suitable equivalent here led to us trying out at least 13 different types of potato.”
Now for some myth-busting. You won’t find any chicken pasta dishes or fettuccine Alfredo on the menu. That’s because they don’t exist in Italy.
There’s no garlic bread either. The sticks of garlic bread we love tucking into are most probably borrowed from French cuisine – a baguette brushed with garlic butter.
“Manchester most definitely HAD an appetite for Italian food, but this changed over time as many westernised versions of Italian restaurants came to the city,” says Davide. “When we set up we had a number of people coming in and asking for garlic bread, but we don’t have it. It’s not actually Italian.”
Instead of garlic bread, Davide suggests a close relative originating from Italy – bruschetta, made from garlic grated with tomatoes and served as part of the antipasti.
The restaurant offers a taste of authentic Italian cafe culture right in Manchester. A relaxed setting where you are encouraged to sit and take time with your food. There isn’t the frantic feel and sounds of kitchen chaos you may associate with some Italian restaurants.
It not only serves up some of the freshest pasta in the city, but is home to a few surprises you most probably have never tried before like homemade vegan parmesan made from nuts, enormous antipasti boards (available with meat, meat-free and gluten-free options) and dessert ravioli with chocolate.
“All the recipes are Italian,” says Paolo. “We make our pasta, bread, starters and desserts ourselves, even sorbets and ice creams.”
The starter boards are enormous and impressive and contain a number of popular dishes from the Piedmont region, including traditional pickled vegetables plus homemade hummus, preserved courgette and mushroom risotto if you are eating vegan. For the meat-eaters there is a range of cured meats and gluten-free is available too.
The mains are equally impressive and the portion sizes massive. Italian food well-suited for northern appetites.
The venison ragu (reginette al barbera con ragu di cervo) is a regular on the menu, based on an Italian family recipe and served with ribbons of red wine pasta and a parmesan crisp.
There are lots of vegan and vegetarian options which are equally authentic. Take the highly commended ravioli di funghi in salsa al tartufo – homemade ravioli filled with mushrooms, garlic, parsley and cashews.
Many of the dishes on the menu change every month and there’s a surprising number of vegan and vegetarian options – none of them synthetic.
“We don’t have a separate vegan or vegetarian menu,” says Davide, “we just show that a number of options on our menu are naturally suitable for vegans. After all, a large proportion of seasonal summer sauces in Italy are already vegetarian and to make it vegan is just a case of simple substitution – like removing cream and using oils and nuts instead.”
They’ve even struck a deal with Unicorn grocery in Chorlton who will be selling their vegan parmesan – a blend of nuts, seeds and seasoning, avoiding that artificial taste which so often taints vegan substitutes.
The menu isn’t the biggest – “A small menu is an index of quality and freshness,” says Paolo. Perhaps that’s why the result is some seriously impressive food.
All the wines and beers are the authentic Italian stuff, imported and suitable for vegans as the Italian way of fermenting alcohol does not use animal products.
“We don’t have any Coca Cola products,” says Paolo. “Instead we have Baladin Cola made in Piedmont. We don’t have Peroni beer, instead we have San Paolo beer from a micro brewery in Torino which exports it to the UK only for us.
“The wines are all Italian, mainly from Piedmont, our region – Barolo, Barbaresco, Barbera, and Dolcetto for example.”
So if you want to treat that special someone make sure the pasta is fresh. They sell the fresh stuff to take home with you too and dry and hand turn it on site so you can take home the dried version.
And if you have any room left, try the chocolate ravioli.
77 Shudehill, Manchester M4 4AN
http://ilovemanchester.com/2017/06/09/a-little-bit-of-little-italy-inside-manchesters-very-own-pasta-factory.aspx
Manchester’s finest
6 June, 2017Read More
I’ll have to admit to getting the wrong end of the stick when first hearing the name Pasta Factory, but thankfully a stroll down Shudehill and a peer through the window of this little Italian eatery was more than enough to persuade me it was definitely worth checking out. My concern, I suppose, was that it sort of sounded like a chain or, if not, the word factory didn’t exactly conjure an ideal of freshly cooked dishes- how wrong I was.
Opened at the back end of 2015 by a group of friends from Turin, The Pasta Factory have been enthusiastically serving Manchester’s hungry folk with handmade pasta, to eat in or take away. So with names out of the way we popped down to try some of this factory’s handiwork.
To begin with we were recommended the special of asparagus wrapped in speck ham. These were a big juicy bunch, thankfully retaining plenty of their al dente crunch and nicely seasoned by the salty ham. The successful simplicity of that starter was replicated by the taglieri, a chopping board covered with delicious antipasti. Anchovy cupped by little gem lettuce and freshly made pesto impressed as did a deliciously savoury feta style cheese marinated in lemon.
Tasty as those appetisers were, freshly made pasta was what I’d come for and so we shared a couple of dishes. First goats cheese filled ravioli smothered in a nectarous sage and pumpkin sauce then sprinkled with sage crumble. I liked the pasta itself but the combination of crumble and sweet sauce was a little oddly reminiscent of a dessert. We also chose the mackerel ravioli and it worked much better for me as a dish, the earthy, grainy chew of wholewheat pasta and such a meaty fibrous fish only needed a delicately flavoured dressing which it gladly received with a simple parsley butter coating, it was really quite impressive stuff.
The pleasingly straightforward menu of pasta, gnocchi and regularly changing specials is mirrored with a perfectly formed list of Italian wines and craft beers. We plumped for the Barbera D’Alba, and its dry spice worked well alongside the oily fish and cheese filled pastas.
Chocolate ravioli sounded like the sort of must-order thing that couldn’t be ignored, the indulgent little bites enveloped in creamy sauce and finished with pine nuts were fun and also pretty good too. Even better though was our other pud, from the specials board, an amaretti biscuit and mascarpone tart that was deliciously moreish, moist but crumbly, it was crying out for a little glass of something sweet, fruity, strong and boozy.
Dessert came around all too quickly if I’m honest as I was really enjoying myself by then. A nicely jovial atmosphere both inside and out of the bustling open kitchen combined with knowledgeable, and indeed quite passionate, service from our waiter had me imagining I was somewhere far from these shores, rather than a stones throw from Manchester’s central bus station.
Pasta has to be one of the simplest forms of food possible, although it’s capable of producing such wonderful dishes, there must be a lesson in there somewhere I reckon.
http://www.manchestersfinest.com/eating-in-manchester/restaurants/the-pasta-factory-review/
vegan olive’s vegan blog
12 April, 2017Read More
The Pasta Factory Shudehill Street Manchester 12th April 2017 The Pasta Factory has been on my radar for ages, after hearing about the fabulous vegan pasta dishes they offer, even making their own vegan Parmesan. The Pasta Factory, pride themselves on their handmade pasta, using the freshest ingredients, so their customers can enjoy a ‘piatto di pasta’ a plate of pasta, which is one of my top dishes of all time. The Pasta Factory is lovely inside, light bright and airy, but was quiet on a Wednesday afternoon, at five o’clock, so I was able to take some great photos of the interior. We sat down and were handed menus by Andy, who explained in great detail, about the vegan and gluten free options. I was very impressed with the attention given to vegan options, unlike other Italian restaurants, where spaghetti with tomato sauce is the only choice. I enquired which wines were vegan friendly, to my complete amazement, Andy said all the wines and beers were vegan, so I chose an excellent Luca Bosio Langhe Arneis, from Piedmont. How fabulous to find somewhere that offers wines on their list, to appeal to all dietary requirements and top quality wines at that, it was gorgeous. My starter was off the specials board, a cannellini bean and mushroom soup, liberally drizzled with olive oil, the aromas were fantastic, before I even tucked in. The soup was velvety and smooth, and made me realise I need to improve my soup making techniques, to achieve such a creamy consistency, served with some bread, it made a delicious starter. Another waiter David brought me two slices of homemade vegan cheese to try, made with almonds, cashews, water and lemon. This was fantastic and would make a fabulous cheese course, with the dehydrated crackers, they serve for gluten free diners. How could I not order their mushroom ravioli, in my thirty years as a vegan, vegan ravioli on a menu is a first for me, so it would be rude not to. The pasta was light and delicate, packed with mushrooms and cashews, in a gorgeous porcini mushroom and black truffle sauce, pretty much my perfect pasta dish. You can tell how much I loved it, by how many photos I have posted. To accompany the pasta, I was offered homemade vegan Parmesan in a kilner jar, to serve as I wished. Unfortunately I was unable to try it, as it had sunflower seeds in, which do not agree with me, but I did not want to appear rude, so Steven tried it for me and voted it spot on. I was too full for dessert, I should have had a lighter option than soup to start, but there were several options, a blueberry cheesecake or chocolate sorbet on the specials board and chocolate ravioli, a permanent fixture on the dessert menu. Overall I was immensely impressed with The Pasta Factory, the two guys looking after us Andy and David were so friendly and informative regarding ingredients and dishes. I love their attitude of cooking authentic Italian cuisine, with a vegan twist, so that everyone can dine there. Would I go back, of course, too many vegan pasta dishes I need to try. The Pasta Factory is highly recommended, it certainly exceeded my expectations. http://veganolive1.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/the-pasta-factory-shudehill-street.html
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