David Bowen and Bill Curtis founded Pappardelle’s  on May 14, 1984. Their vision? Exquisite, fresh pasta in an array of flavors never before experienced by Americans. At that time, pasta in the United States was generally limited to the one basic flavor: plain.

After extensive research they decided that the only way to ensure that their pasta creations would be of the highest quality was to recreate the traditional Italian pasta making methods: fresh, high-quality ingredients and small batches.

Like the finest pasta makers, David and Bill used bronze dies to form the pasta, which produces a coarser noodle that holds its sauce and feels luxurious on the palate. Pappardelle’s was adhering to “Slow Food” principles such as preserving traditional methods of food preparation and using only the highest quality ingredients, long before it was the “in” thing.

Our Flour

Although flour is made out of wheat, it can vary wildly -- not only nutritional content, but also flavor and overall integrity. Pasta made with all-purpose or bleached flours are inferior. Pasta made with a combination of all-purpose flour and semolina durum wheat are only slightly better. Only pure durum semolina flour gives birth to high-quality pasta. So, of course, this is the type of flour that Pappardelle’s uses in all of its pasta.

The majority of durum semolina flour used by the pasta industry in this country is grown in the northern part of the United States. Cool summer nights and long, warm summer days create ideal conditions for durum to thrive. Durum is planted in mid-April and harvested in late August. Semolina is the coarsely ground endosperm of durum wheat that's golden in color and very coarse and granular in texture.
We at Pappardelle’s know that the better the durum, the better the pasta. It is from durum wheat, the hardest wheat known, that pasta gets its yellow amber color, pleasant nutty flavor and the ability to retain both shape and firmness when cooked. We have been sourcing our flour from the same supplier since our birth in 1984, ensuring the best and most consistent pasta quality available to you.

Our Dried Pasta

Pasta is sturdy, but during production it can be temperamental — a host of factors can ruin a batch of dough. For example, our process must take into account the nature and moisture level of each raw ingredient, how much water is added during the mixing process and exactly what temperature water is ideal for the particular recipe, how much time is the mix allowed to churn, how much air is applied to the pasta as it is being formed, how much ambient humidity is present and what is the ambient temperature of the dough room.

The “flavorings” we use in our pasta are sourced from the industry’s highest quality producers. We do not use preservatives or unnatural flavorings in our pasta.