Pastaioli - Fresh Handmade Pasta Bar at Emsphere!

There are no shortage of Italian restaurants in Bangkok. And with Bangkok’s newest shopping mall, Emsphere, just being opened, many new Italian restaurants are introduced (also not to mentioned introducing huge annoying road traffic to the area…).

One of them is Pastaioli, an small Italian joint serving freshly made pasta noodles. For those of you who are long time readers of Feastography, you’ll likely know that I love pasta and my most favorite spot in Bangkok to get pasta is Ranee’s Velo Restaurant near Khao San Road. Let’s see if Pastaioli will take that top spot :)

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Fresh Handmade Pasta in Empshere

pastaioli empshere — *The restaurant is quite small with few seating options*

Located in the bottom floor of Emsphere, where all the restaurants are, the first thing you’ll notice about Pastaioli is how small and cozy everything is.

Even having a few bar counter style seating options, which makes sense as the restaurant does advertise themselves as a “Pasta Bar”

Although this does make the restaurant pretty small and cramp.

pastaioli emsphere — *Look at the master at work*

The second thing you’ll notice, once you sit down is that the pasta noodles are all made fresh, If you pick the bar counter seating you’ll have a front row view into the kitchen were you can spectate the chefs at work kneading and forming the pasta noodles.

I’m no pasta connoisseur so I couldn’t name all the noodle shapes the chef was making but there are a good variety to see.

Pastaioli Menu

Pastaioli’s menu is simple with no pictures, and if you don’t speak Thai well good luck trying to figure out what each menu item is, as the dishes are named in Italian without any English descriptions, just Thai descriptions.

What’s good is you can choose which pasta noodles you want, the available options are:

Cavatelli
Casarecce
Fusilli
Spaghetti Alla Chitarra
Pici
Tagliatelle
Pappardelle

And you can combine them with the following sauces:

Aglio E Olio
Piennolo Tomato
Amatriciana
Gorgonzola E Noci
Pesto Genovese
Allo Scoglio
Pork Sausage & Porcini
Lamb Ragu

There are also stuffed pastas, signature menu items, desserts, and appetizers you can choose from. As well as a selection of wines.

Pricing

The pricing is really expensive and not to mention the portions are quite small. You can expect to pay around 250 THB - 850 THB depending on the pasta sauce or dish. With a regular dish of pasta coming in at around 350+ THB.

Signature La Carbonara Mezze Maniche

pastaioli la carbonara mezze maniche — *The plate of pasta looks beautiful in my opinion*

I ordered the signature Carbonara with the large round Mezze Maniche pasta noodles . And guys, I am so happy this is legit Carbonara, not the one with heavy cream but the one where the sauce is made with egg yolk and parmesan!

Now is this the best Carbonara in Thailand? Not even close, the best one I had was at Pasta e Basta, a small family run Italian restaurant in Rayong. Their Carbonara is simply divine.

Anyways, the Carbonara at Emsphere’s Pastaioli is really salty, like unpleasantly so. Salty from the Guanciale pork cheek I suppose. It was also pretty mild in flavor.

The pasta noodles themselves were also a bit chewy as if they were undercooked.

Overall, not a good first impression for Pastaioli.

Tagliatelle Amatriciana

My girlfriend ordered the Amatriciana with Tagliatelle noodles, thing flat Pasta noodles cooked in tomato based and pork cheek sauce.

This one was better than my Carbonara, the flavors were more balanced, the tomatoes wasn’t overly sour or anything, just the right amount of tartness. However it was still quite bland.

I also liked the pasta noodles in this dish more, it was cooked perfectly al dente, the just a little bit of firmness and a smooth slurp-able texture, the flavor of the noodles was once again quite bland, and a little grainy even…?

This dish was better than my Carbonara but not by much…

Refreshingly Tart Bruschetta

pastaioli bruschetta — *Two tiny slices of toast, it’s pretty good toast though*

We also ordered the Bruschetta to share. The toasty pieces of sour dough bread was piled high with chopped tomatoes, herbs, and garlic, then drizzled with olive oil.

The Bruschetta is tasty and I love the contrast of the fresh juicy tomatoes with the warm and crunchy toast. This dish was good.

My only complaint was that the portion was quite small, only 2 bites and it was gone. It’s also expensive at 190 THB for what it is, Chopped tomatoes on toast. I know I might’ve angered some Italians with my statement there but it’s true.

Conclusion

Pros

You can customize your pasta with your choice of noodles and sauces.
Handmade fresh pasta noodles, what could be wrong with that?
For certain dishes, the noodles were cooked beautifully al dente

Cons

The pasta dishes taste bland and not very bright in flavor. Some was way too salty.
The price is ridiculously expensive
The portions are too small

Overall I would not recommend you go to Pastaioli. I felt quite disappointed, more so about the price and the portion sizes. I like the fact that you can customize your pasta as well as the handmade aspect of it all. The presentation of the dishes also looked beautiful.

The bland and unbalanced flavors combined with the high prices I am paying really soured the experience. It’s a shame because the potential for something great is definitely there.

Pastaioli | 6.5 / 10

Phone: +66 65 724 9891

Location: 628 Sukhumvit Rd, Khlong Tan, Khlong Toei, Bangkok 10110

Opening Hours: 10:00AM - 10:00PM | Mon - Sun

Pricing: 350++ THB per dish

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