PASTA – FOOD FOR THE GODS?

by Chené Koscielny

Picture credit main photograph: Monograno Felicitti

Pasta has always been a staple food of Italian kitchens, but it’s not exactly been haute cuisine. However, apparently, this is changing, as the quality of the pasta and ingredients are inspiring even Michelin-starred chefs to come up with award-winning creations.

We had a taste of some of these pasta dishes made for the gods at Kytaly – one of Geneva’s finest Italian restaurants – during a visit of Michelin 2 star Italian chef Alfio Ghezzi.

Kytaly is already known for its high end pizza – check out our pizza review here, but now they aim to uplift their pasta to similar culinary heights.

THE PASTA

It starts with the quality of the pasta. Kytaly works with Monograno Felicetti – a superior pasta brand which is made from prized minimally processed whole-grain flours, spring water from a source 2,000 metres above sea level and pristine Dolomite mountain air.

There are different types of this pasta, all of which were sampled during our tasting menu at Kytaly.

THE CHEESE

Of course, we all know parmesan cheese goes with pasta, but to make your pasta dish exceptional, you need the finest quality Italian cheese and at Kytaly they have chosen to use Grana Padano AOP, originally created by monks in 1135 in the North of Italy as a way to preserve and use surplus Italian milk.

Their efforts was at the origin of this grainy, chunky cheese which has an intense, rich flavour and is used by top Italian chefs.

THE MENU

Our meal started with a variety of pasta and cheese inspired starters and we particularly enjoyed the Fusilloni monograno Felicetti Matt pasta swirls topped with basil pesto and Grana Padano Cheese.

For the main course – we enjoyed Spaghettini Monograno Felicetti Matt cooked like a risotto to absorb the flavours – with lemon, cumin seeds, trout eggs and of course the obligatory Grana Padano cheese.

OUR FAVOURITE PASTA DISH BY FAR

We LOVED the unusual taste of the chiocciole monograno Felicetti Kamut – with tuna, cheese and wait for it… sprinkled with coffee! The sweetness of the coffee is very unusual and surprisingly good with the tuna. A real discovery.

We also had a veal dish prepared milanese style – rolled in a mixture of breadcrumbs and pasta – but to be honest, this dish didn’t have as much flavour as we expected. We much preferred the pasta-based dishes.

PASTA-INSPIRED PUDDING

As you may have guessed, the pudding was also pasta-inspired – curls of monograno felicetti soffiate with ice-cream and little gelatine blocks of Grana Padano cheese – a very interesting and yummy combination.