Carb it up with these new summer pasta dishes. Bonus: Cheese is involved
Ravioli oozes a creamy pool of mascarpone.
Campanelle cradles the season’s best Dungeness crab.
Casarecce hides a dynamite pistachio pesto in its folds.
When chanterelle season hits, saffron tagliatelle will return to the menu at Sixth Avenue’s Primo Grill.
Two obvious loves for chef-owner Charlie McManus are seasonal ingredients and making his own pastas in house. Right now is the best time of year to see the collision of both.
Since he and co-owner/wife Jacqueline Plattner moved Primo to its new home in 2014, McManus has delved deeper into new shapes, styles and ingredient pairings.
The hand-cut raviolis filled with mascarpone and peas is one of McManus’ favorites.
“We roll it out and fill it with a combination of peas, mascarpone and Parmesan. The idea is that the pea puree and mascarpone will emulsify as the ravioli cooks. It turns into a sweet, cheesy liquid, which goes into the cheese and butter (on the plate) to make a complete sauce,” he said.
Indeed, the rich filling oozed into the Parmesan butter sauce, creating just the luscious texture he described. The pasta was topped with fresh chopped mint and fresh peas ($19).
Another seasonal concoction on the menu now is a casarecce, long tube-shaped pasta with a bouncy texture that folds over onto itself, creating a perfect channel for McManus’s pistachio pesto ($19). He makes his pesto with the typical basil, garlic, lemon, olive oil and Parmesan but swaps out the nuts, which shifts the flavor profile just enough for a diner to notice.
“Pine nuts are a little fatty, and the pistachios have a little more spicy nature to them. It makes for a rich pesto,” he said.
He finishes that dish with halved Roma tomatoes roasted with goat cheese.
That dish will be on the menu through September.
The saffron tagliatelle with morels just exited the menu at the close of that mushroom’s season but will return soon enough with chanterelles, said McManus. I appreciated the silky ribbons of the eggy tagliatelle that carried the appropriately simple accompaniments of garlic, basil and tomatoes ($22).
New on the menu is Dungeness crab with campanelle, the ruffle-edged pasta in the shape of a cone.
“We’re using squid ink in that. The pasta comes out jet black. It’s really cool on the plate. People love it,” he said. He’s serving it with Dungeness and preserved lemon, plus spicy chiles.
The legacy house pasta always on the menu, whether it’s July or November, is McManus’s fettucini with a creamy lemon-asparagus sauce and smoked salmon ($19). McManus also is serving a house spaghetti with beef ragu and Grana Parmesan ($18).
Here’s something to note: Primo’s pastas can be customized for vegans. Tagliatelle is an egg pasta, of course, but the others are made in house with semolina, water and salt, which means that all the egg-free pastas can be customized for vegans.
“We’re buying our beets from Four Elements Farm and greens and summer squash from Wild Hare Farm right now,” he said. “So all those ingredients can be made into a vegan dish with local ingredients.”
One more tip from McManus: “On our happy hour menu, we have spaghetti with puttanesca. And then we have the campanelle, with a cheese sauce.”
Happy hours run 4-6 p.m. and 9 p.m. to close Monday-Saturday, and the pastas are priced under $10, said McManus.
Primo Grill opens at 4 p.m. daily at 2701 Sixth Ave., Tacoma; 253-383-7000; primogrilltacoma.com.
EN RAMA
Across town behind an unmarked door inside the Court House Square building downtown, there’s another restaurant making its own pastas. Chris Keil’s En Rama is known as one of the region’s top cocktail destinations, but it should be known for its pastas, too.
En Rama’s latest pasta menu draws inspiration from Keil’s trip to Chez Panisse two months ago. As an interesting aside, a server gave him an impromptu tour of that restaurant’s pasta room, which uses the same style of high-end pasta machine used in the En Rama kitchen.
A house-made pea ravioli just exited the menu, but I’ll point you in the direction of the paccheri, a tube-shaped pasta with plenty of surface area to soak up the restaurant’s fantastic tomato-rabbit ragu, a sauce completely void of gaminess ($14).
Keil said he’s pleased with a few new pasta dishes that just entered the summer menu: pappardelle with braised chicken ($14) and bucatini with summer black truffles ($12).
Tip: The 21-and-older bar just started lunch service in June and brunch service this month.
Find En Rama at 1102 A St. Suite 220, Tacoma; 253-223-7184; facebook.com/enramatacoma.
This story was originally published July 26, 2018 at 12:00 PM.