What We Ate at Pre-Shift: Pappardelle Fiesolana

Yesterday, at pre-shift, we ate Pappardelle Fiesolana. It was the special on the blackboard, and the six of us stood shoulder to shoulder around the bar, passing a fork back and forth over the shiny metal pot we use for specials. No plates. No ceremony. All in. 

Our house made pappardelle is always feather thin, wide ribbons folding into a soft pink sauce, the color somewhere between cream and tomato. Flecks of crispy pancetta, rendered down and salty at the edges, studded the sauce. Sweet onion melted in. Fresh herbs made it sing. 

Fiesole is a small town above Florence. Old, Etruscan. The kind of place where the cooking is simple and rooted in what Italians call cucina povera, using what’s on hand and making it enough.

This dish follows that logic. It’s not trying to be vodka sauce, but it’s in the same family. Deeper. Warmer. More complete.

We opened a bottle of Argiano Brunello di Montalcino 2021 alongside it. Same region, same sun, same language. Like with like. The wine has structure, grip, that Sangiovese backbone, but also this softness that meets the cream without fighting it. It doesn’t cut the dish. It settles into it.

I brought a plate of the pasta home for J. later that night. It’s her favorite right now. A more grown-up version of the vodka sauce she loved as a kid, but still recognizable enough that she doesn’t question it.

Guests love it too. You can see it the moment it lands on the table. There’s a pause, then the first bite, then the look. A lick-the-lips, go back in immediately, no conversation for a minute kind of delicious.

Follow along. This is how we eat, every day.