Pasta Supply Co

Put all of the pasta spots in SF on a Venn diagram, with one circle being quality and the other affordability, and not many would land in the middle. Pasta Supply Co is the inner sweet spot. Each pasta on the menu costs less than $18, yet is on par with what you’d find at high-end Italian places across the city. Even better news? This restaurant and pasta shop is a carb dream for those who love simplicity. 

This spot is primarily a pasta shop, and it only takes one look at the glass case full of every shape under the sun to know that it takes flour and water seriously. They’re also stocked with pasta-adjacent staples in the form of butter, burrata, and tubs of pesto and pork sugo that are so good they’ll make that jar of Rao’s in your pantry taste like child’s play. At 5pm, the minimally decorated space opens for dine-in. Dinner is a slightly clunky hybrid of sit-down and counter-service: you put an order with the staff at the front door before you’re led to a table. Ordering is the most complicated part of an evening here. But once you’re seated, steaming hot plates of noodles and sauce come quickly.

photo credit: Carly Hackbarth

photo credit: Carly Hackbarth

photo credit: Carly Hackbarth

photo credit: Carly Hackbarth

photo credit: Carly Hackbarth

Keeping in theme, the menu is straightforward: it’s just five to six pastas and a few appetizers. This place is less about over-the-top flavor combinations and presentation, and more about pastas that are fresh as hell, and sauces that are the best versions of themselves. Hand-cut maltagliata are tossed in a basil pesto that’s bright and luscious, and the fusilli in vodka sauce is a mildly spicy flavor bomb. The bouncy mafaldine is coated in nothing but butter, cheese, and cracked black pepper—it’s the grown-up edition of your favorite after-school snack, with the option to add beef cheek sugo for next-level fatty richness. 

In an ideal world, there would be a Pasta Supply Co on every block. But since the reality we’re in hasn’t quite yet reached that sophisticated level of cloning, we’ll gladly hightail it to the Richmond. Nicer-than-average dinners that won’t leave you needing to take out a personal loan await. 

Food Rundown

photo credit: Carly Hackbarth

Pan’terra

Kickstart the meal with this golden-brown, ciabatta-like bread. It’s good enough plain, but we like to eat ours with a side of creamy buffalo milk burrata to jazz things up.

photo credit: Carly Hackbarth

Mafaldine With Beef Cheek Sugo

Get this dish with only butter and cheese and you’ll leave completely satisfied. But there are also two add-ons: truffle butter (if you’re someone whose eyes bug out when reading the word “truffle,” this is the way to go), and the saucy beef cheek sugo.

Sweet Corn Raviolini

The best pasta on the menu. These little pockets are tossed in sauerkraut butter (for a barely-there sour touch), fresh sweet corn, and fried peppercorns. It’s so sweet it could pass for dessert.

photo credit: Carly Hackbarth

Fusilli in Spicy Vodka Tomato

This pasta will disappear faster than you can say “fusilli in spicy vodka tomato.” The spicy(ish) vodka sauce clings to the squiggly fusilli and gushes out from the pasta crevices with each bite.

photo credit: Carly Hackbarth

Maltagliata In Basil Pesto

The handkerchief-like pasta is coated in a velvety basil pesto that can only be described as luxurious. You can’t go wrong ordering this one.