From spaghetti to fusilli, why artisan pasta made with love by Italian family-run businesses is worth the money

‘Artisan pasta is a galaxy of its own,’ says an Italian food expert. To find brands such as Benedetto Cavalieri or Martelli go to a high-end store or restaurant

This pasta is defined by small-scale production, premium ingredients and slow processing techniques, and naturally it commands premium prices

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Benedetto Cavalieri artisan pasta is made by a family-run business in Puglia, southern Italy. Made with premium ingredients and slow processing techniques, pasta like this is a world away from that of mass-market brands such as Barilla, and commands higher prices. Photo: Silvia Marchetti

Published: 12:15pm, 18 Jun 2021Updated: 1:03pm, 18 Jun 2021

For Italians, pasta is their daily bread – some even eat it twice a day. It is a communal dish – one that families enjoy while talking over the dinner table. However, unless they have a traditional granny at home making fresh egg pasta, most rely on packaged pastasciutta – dry pasta.

Not all packaged pasta is created equal. At the supermarket, you’ll find mass-produced brands such as Barilla and De Cecco. You need to go to a high-end store or restaurant to get a taste of real artisan-made pastasciutta.

“Artisan pasta is a galaxy of its own,” says Anna Maria Pellegrino, a member of Italy’s Cuisine Academy. “There’s generations-old know-how and great quality behind the small niche brands, but even here we need to make a distinction: there are packages of dried durum wheat or whole wheat pasta, and packages of dried pasta made with eggs, which is a shelved version of fresh pasta.”

Thanks to small-scale production, premium ingredients and slow processing techniques, artisan packaged pasta is at least three times more expensive than industrially made pasta, and comes in fewer shapes.

Spaghettoni being made at the Benedetto Cavalieri mill and pasta factory. Photo: Benedetto Cavalieri

The Cavalieri family, from the picturesque town of Maglie in the gorgeous, sunny Puglia region in Italy’s south, has been growing fine, select durum wheat since the 1800s.