Small towns take notice when change is on the horizon, and Middletown is no exception. So when there was construction activity this summer in the space where Ming Moon had closed a year ago, there was a buzz amongst Aquidneck Islanders – and they didn’t have to wait long for the big reveal.
Pasta Vino opened on the last day of August, touting “authentic Italian cuisine” and manifesting the vision of owner Anthony “Tony” Lorusso and business partner Will Bard. The restaurant is the culinary companion of the duo’s Newport restaurant, Vieste, located on Thames Street, which sits next to their seafood-centric eatery, Hooked.
The duo hadn’t set out to open a Middletown restaurant, but when Lorusso saw the space had become available, the wheels started turning, and he knew exactly who to call to get some insight. “I had a nice conversation with Barnaby – he has a great clientele, and he’s a friend of mine,” Lorusso says about Barnaby Quinn, who owns the wildly popular bakery Le Bec Sucré. “He said, ‘Tony, I can’t think of a better neighbor. Why don’t you do this?’” Lorusso considered all of the customers at Vieste who said they’d love to see another location outside of Newport. Once he confirmed he’d be able to secure a full liquor license, it was all systems go.
With just a few months under its belt, Pasta Vino has already won a steady flow of fans, with reservations proving advantageous, as waits at the door aren’t uncommon. Located in the Polo Center on Aquidneck Avenue (which offers ample parking), the nearly 50-seat restaurant isn’t a big space by any means, but makes the most of its square footage by clearly distinguishing its dining room from the 12-seat bar, which runs nearly the entire length of the restaurant and offers a pair of high tops. Behind the bar, a black wall with built-ins accommodates the shelves stocked with well-known spirits and carefully selected, predominantly Italian wines, representing the country’s vast and diverse winemaking regions of Tuscany, Lombardy, Salento, Campania, Umbria, Abruzzo, Piedmont, and beyond. Familiar songs pump through the speakers – from Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore” to a potpourri of Frank Sinatra hits.
The heart of the menu is housemade pasta – plump ravioli, sheets of lasagne, wide ribbons of pappardelle, and lesser-known varieties including tonnarelli, an egg pasta similar to spaghetti only with a thicker, square-shaped noodle ideal for sopping up thick sauces. “We bring in a durum semolina flour directly from Italy – the big difference is that it’s not refined like you get here in the States, so the texture of the pasta is more al dente than you typically get in this country.”
Flavors at Pasta Vino are emblematic of authentic Italian dishes, so diners won’t find some familiar Italian American dishes, like chicken parmesan, on the menu, and that’s for the best.
“I wanted to try to bring more of the trattoria pasta dishes that are just classics in Rome,” says Lorusso, whose family emigrated to the US from Vieste on Italy’s Adriatic coast in 1958. Examples include Bruschetta al Pomodoro – grilled Italian bread topped with grape tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, basil, olive oil, and oregano – and entrees like the Maccheroni Amatriciana: ribbed tube pasta and spicy tomato sauce with crispy pork cheek and pecorino cheese. “For the Tonnarelli Carbonara dish, we bring the guanciale – the pork cheek – in from Italy,” explains Lorusso. “When that dish is finished, and I’ve tested it several times, it’s as good as what you would get in Rome.”
From-scratch focaccia is served with top-quality olive oil for dipping ahead of meals, and the antipasto menu offers a variety of small plates ideal for sampling and sharing. Lorusso lights up most when speaking about the very first item on the menu, Meatballs alla Nonna, made with beef, veal, pork, and bread crumbs served in housemade tomato sauce. “That’s my mother’s recipe,” he says, beaming, “along with the pasta that we’re making. My mom always home-made breads and pastas, and the ingredients that we’re using are what she taught us.”
Currently, Pasta Vino exclusively serves dinner Wednesday through Saturday nights, but Lorusso says that in the not-too-distant future, they’d like to expand to offering lunch and take-out as well. He also expects the menu to evolve with time. “Just like in Italy, they eat seasonally, so whatever we can get fresh that we can introduce into some of these pasta dishes, we will.”
694 Aquidneck Avenue, Middletown
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