If I could live anywhere in the world it would be Italy. It has always been my dream to live in the country where (in my head at least) I can eat pasta and gelato, washed down with a crisp white wine, every day and never feel the effects. Unfortunately for my Italian dream, I am married to a Dutchie so for now I remain in Haarlem, but with the opening of Rigatoni, I may not be able to live in Italy, but I can get my pasta fix here in the city (if not daily then at least weekly!).
Leaving the inevitable Dutch summer rain, when you walk through the door at Rigatoni you are enveloped by the feeling of being in the Italian sunshine. The warm decor pulls you in, inviting you to pull up a chair and spend the rest of the evening leaving all your worries behind, with the hardest decision you are forced to make being which pasta you’ll go for.
The focus of this restaurant is simplicity, which for anyone who has eaten in Italy knows is the core of Italian cooking. The Italians know that if the ingredients are excellent quality, then, you do not need to do much to them to make them shine. Rigatoni follows this principle, with a menu that showcases Italian ingredients at their best. The service is friendly and welcoming, with the staff always happy to share a recommendation or explain an unknown ingredient. There is a briskness about the restaurant, and it is always busy, but you never feel rushed whilst enjoying your meal.
I don’t know how they have done it, but when I bite into the bruschetta pomodoro I can taste the sunshine in the tomato. Paired with the creamy squacquerone cheese and the salty, melt in your mouth prosciutto your mouth explodes with flavour. The pasta doesn’t disappoint when it arrives. A steaming bowl of rigatoni with tomato sauce, lashings of pecorino and salty guanciale (a type of salty pork from the cheek) for me and a rich seafood spaghettoni with clams for my friend. The homemade pasta is light enough that we both could demolish the whole bowl, even after our first course feast.
On a previous visit here I had the ravioli with pea and lemon, which is buttery and light and everything you want from a summer pasta. I am slowly working my way through the pasta menu and I am yet to be disappointed with any of my choices. The menu is small, but when you can taste how fresh the pasta is, and how much care has been taken with the ingredients, you understand why they keep the menu simple. I wash my pasta down with a glass of fresh and zingy pinot grigio, the perfect pairing to cut through the richness of the sauce coating the pasta. All of the wine on the menu is from Italy, reasonably priced and if wine isn’t your thing, there is a selection of delicious cocktails as well.
Now for my favourite course. My family has a long running joke that I always look at the dessert menu before I look at any other course (I laugh, but secretly it’s true... I plan the rest of the meal around the dessert and with the aim to not be so full that I cannot fit one in; although I have a theory we have a second stomach for dessert!). However, when I ordered the lemon meringue at Rigatoni from the first mouthful I wasn’t disappointed. The pastry is crisp, buttery and melts in your mouth. The lemon filling is creamy and zingy and the meringue adds the silky sugar to bring it all together. My friend who came with me for the meal told me very directly that my homemade lemon meringue pie that I had made her a few weeks prior, was now coming in second place to this one. I couldn’t be mad at her- I one hundred percent agree!
I would love to be able to tell you about the other desserts offered, but I have been here five times now and each time have been unable to not order the lemon meringue... there’s always next time though!
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By Sarah Althuis
