In Bologna, pasta isn’t just a meal—it’s the city’s lifeblood. Walk the streets of the historic center and you won’t go more than a few hundred yards without seeing it displayed in a storefront, advertised on a billboard, or even immortalized in graffiti. You can see the craft behind it in action at the city’s many laboratori, where pasta is mixed, rolled, cut, and shaped by hand. Some laboratori sell to the public onsite or at their own shops or eateries nearby and will even let you watch the pasta being made; others exclusively supply trattorias and/or prefer to work behind closed doors. These are a few I love.
BRUNO E FRANCO, VIA SAN SIMONE 2/A
The Bruno e Franco laboratorio, which doubles as a school, is on the third floor (second in Italian terms), so you have to buzz to get in. The sfogline—Grazia, Angela, Monica, and Mara—expertly roll and shape pasta on cherry wood using mattarelli carved around the turn of the twentieth century. You can take a class there or just stop by to watch them work, but to buy their wonderful pastas (tortellini, cannelloni, gnocchi, and other varieties), you must go to nearby Bruno e Franco on Via Guglielmo Oberdan 16, which is basically a salumeria.
TRATTORIA ANNA MARIA, VIA DELLE BELLE ARTI 17/A
Trattoria Anna Maria serves dozens of pasta dishes a day. Each tortellino or tagliatella strand is handcrafted a one-minute walk away in a yellow-hued workshop whose color scheme mirrors the tint of the wide pasta sheets rolled out by the sfogline. The laboratorio is closed to the public, but, luckily, anyone can dine at the trattoria.
LA VECCHIA SCUOLA BOLOGNESE, VIA STALINGRADO 81
Strange as it may sound, Maestra Alessandra’s laboratorio is now in a circus tent well outside the city. She moved there from her original location near downtown Bologna, where I spent so much time, after a property dispute. Aside from that, not much has changed. The maestra and her family continue to run their pasta shop/school/informal restaurant and at 1 p.m.-ish every day, a few people come for lunch to eat the students’ “mistakes.” (There’s no better way to learn how not to make pasta than to see your hard work thrown into the scrap bin and sold for cheap to diners.) Whether you visit for lunch or a lesson—she teaches amateurs and professional chefs alike—be sure to ask if you can buy some pasta a portare via (to take away).
