29 February 2024
My name is Jess, and I love pasta.
Fresh noodles and dumplings are the food I’m probably most likely to overindulge in if given the chance.
It’s so hard to find really great fresh pasta, though. Stuffed pastas must be rolled thinly, and the inside ingredients must be the right consistency — not too thick or chewy, but also not too runny. And die- or hand-cut pastas must be cooked in a flash, leaving some springiness in the center.
Pasta — good, handmade pasta — is also very labor intensive.
So when I saw Dario’s menu, with 10 fresh pasta options, I was eager to see what the new North Loop restaurant from chef Joe Rolle, formerly of Borough, Il Foro and Martina, was up to.
A few girlfriends and I had tickets to a show in downtown Minneapolis recently, so I made a reservation.
The Wittkamper Studio-designed restaurant, with its retro/modern pastel pink, teal and white accents, turned out to be the perfect spot for a ladies’ night out.
We were seated close enough to see the action in the muted pink-tiled kitchen and to peep the equipment in the glass-enclosed pasta room — used by day to mix and roll out the noodles and dumplings and by night as extra seating or space for private dining.
Good cocktails are a boon to any ladies’ night, and Stephen Rowe, who worked for a decade at the now-closed Marvel Bar, has created an excellent menu of classic and not-so-classic drinks. Many of the original creations skew toward the lower-alcohol end of the spectrum, and a few of us enjoyed the slightly sweet and complex rum-based Kelly Kapowski and the floral, delicate gin-based The Gardener’s Break.
Dario’s menu, which is made for sharing, is more than just pasta — raw dishes, vegetables and main dishes are all available. We were in a time crunch so decided to start with a few vegetables, move into pasta and sample the brick chicken, sort of as an afterthought.
The marinated beets featured larger wedges of the root vegetable draped with pretty, thin beet ribbons and topped with some dill pickle chips and little sprigs of dill. A sauce gribiche, which featured finely chopped hard-boiled egg, tied the whole thing together.
Grilled cabbage, served piled into a little hut disguising creamy, horseradish-spiked potatoes beneath, was up next, a stick-to-your-ribs, very northern European-feeling dish. And because we are good midwesterners, we followed that with the crispy potatoes, topped with creamy melted comte cheese and sweet caramelized onions. No one complained about the extra potatoes.
And the pasta! It was as wonderful and varied and delicious as I had dared hope.
Silky spaghetti spiked with briny blue crab, mild Meyer lemon and a little kick of chili. Perfectly textured rigatoni, a bright vodka sauce nestled between the pasta’s ridges, with fennel-spiked sausage providing richness. Little envelopes of agnolotti stuffed with short rib so tender and beefy that it melted on my tongue, paired with a funky hit of gorgonzola. And my favorite, scarpinocc, stuffed with sweet butternut squash, its little dimple a genius vehicle for nutty browned butter and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
The afterthought brick chicken was also fantastic — ultra juicy with a lovely sear and a briny, nutty, browned butter-caper sauce.
We didn’t have time for dessert, but given the outstanding quality of the rest of the menu, I can guarantee that when I return, which will be soon, I’ll make time to give it a try.
Dario
Where: 323 N. Washington Ave., Minneapolis
Contact: 612-614-2560; dariorestaurant.com
Prices: First courses and vegetables, $14-$30; pastas, $23-$29; fish and meat, $26-$62
Good to know: North Loop parking can be a challenge; ride share or public transportation is a good idea. Pastas are hand-made and cannot be made gluten-free. Reservations recommended.
Small Bites are first glances — not intended as definitive reviews — of new or changed restaurants.
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