Savino’s Quality Pasta (111 Conselyea St.), Williamsburg’s old-school Italian grocery store known for its homemade pasta and a favorite among local chefs, has started to offer pasta-making classes.
Savino’s pasta-making experience teaches students the entire process of how to make their chef-approved pasta from scratch. Cono Savino, co-owner of Savino’s, explained what happens during the experience.
“As people arrive, the experience starts with a charcuterie board while the guests enjoy a glass of wine and get settled,” Savino said. “Then, we go into the back and learn about the pasta flour and how to make the dough, and each [of the students] makes their own.”
After making the dough, each student puts the dough through Savino’s pasta machine, rolls it out into sheets, and cuts it into the pasta shape they choose. Each student also has their choice of sauce from vodka, marinara or pesto. After the pasta is prepared, students settle again and enjoy the fruits of their labors at a table set up for the classes inside the shop.
The classes are capped at 10 people, cost $70 per person, and are BYOB. They are “no frills” and “very fun.”
Savino’s started the classes earlier this year and has continued offering them regularly twice a week on Thursdays and Saturdays from 7 – 9 p.m. “We started in February of this year because one of our regular customers suggested it and said they would organize and market them, so we gave it a try,” Savino told Greenpointers.
The classes “have been really popular among locals in the area,” he said. He occasionally gets a group from Manhattan or someone visiting, but the classes are mostly made up of Brooklyn residents.
Savino told Greenpointers that he and his parents plan to continue the classes “as long as they are being booked.” To sign up for a class, visit the link in Savino’s Instagram bio.
Savino’s Quality Pasta is owned by Cono Savino and his parents, Frank and Josephine, who immigrated from Salerno, Italy, and opened Savino’s in 2003. The shop opened with only a few pasta selections, and has grown over the past two decades into a grocery store with a variety of cooked food, sandwiches, salads, fresh mozzarella, homemade sauces, and of course, fresh pasta.