When my younger colleague Thomas sunk into the $30 lobster tagliolini here, “wah, worth it lah!’ was the accompanying sound he made together with an expression of enlightenment. This, from a young Gen X man who grew up on a diet of $9.90 fast food pastas made with freeze pack sauces.

"Wah, worth it lah!" Thomas's immediate response after digging into the Lobster Tagliolini

Then he maintained blissful silence as he wolfed down the Ossobuco in Cremolata (mee pok with veal shank in white wine and herbed tomato sauce). He released a distinct smile, like a deaf mute hearing music for the first time, when he bit into the fresh bread smeared with the dangerously smooth sliver of marrow and carefully dug out of the shank, softly trampled with droplets of the wine and tomato sauce.

The Ossobuco in Cremolata (mee pok with veal shank in white wine and herbed tomato sauce)

All this, in an old Italian restaurant in the very volatile pasta business which nearly closed twice in its 15 years history since the early 90s. “It is very hard to run a successful restaurant business here if you don’t put your knee and elbow grease into the operations”, as Mr Rolando Luceri will attest to. He wound down from the glamorous world of hotel management and operations and took over from the previous owner of Pasta Brava, who contemplated winding up, because “the guy was just not into the business as it was a venture his father paid to get him into.” So he revamped the operations at the ripe early retirement age of 52. Fifteen years on, this is still one of the better dedicated pasta joints around. The secret to their staying power - a stubborn determination to maintain consistency despite changing demographics with fickle expectations. “We still hand make our own pastas and have the dried and fresh range. It is not practical to maintain the snoot appeal of Italian restaurants anymore. Everyone is selling Italian food, even in food courts and everyone is confused as to what a good one really is these days. Every chef we hire, I tell them to do pasta our way or its no way.”

Mr Rolando Luceri (with wife Shirley)
insists that his chefs make pasta his way

That position he took did well for him and on any given day, his Shenton Way regulars make up for 70% of the action in the kitchen and he feels hiring locals with a hungrier desire to learn is better than a wannabe ego-maniac Italian chef. It helps that he pays them “a bit more than the others.”

His restaurant, in a pre-war shophouse with a woody decor that has hardly changed over the years, has hints of Peranakan heritage. An old shelf and an ornate partition screen, which is more at home in a Peranakan house, sits proudly amidst touches of Italian art and crafts. Their menu, which is also a misfit, looks like a tabloid newspaper which lists full Italian offerings from antipasti, two main dish sections to risotto.

To be in the Italian restaurant business specializing in pasta for over a decade and a half takes more than grit and toil. Many good Italian eateries have come and gone, like Gaetano’s. Every other little café just around the back alley or in a cosy corner of many retail malls is serving an $8.80 version of it. Someone at the hawker centres will tout it for $5.50. It helps that Rolando has that “hawker” appeal – some popular pasta dishes are done the same since day one and regulars, by default, return for the same dish expecting the same experience every time.

Each time I visit, without fail, their seafood pastas and linguine, is the same ol’ same ol’. Never failing or shocking is their spinach ravioli stuffed with ricotta and sundried tomatoes. I am always reminded of just what al dente means in pasta, amidst all this claims and razzmatazz about “authentic and al dente” pastas in this new hype food industry.

Pasta Brava

Address 11 Craig Rd Off Tanjong Pagar

Opening Hours Lunch & Dinner Closed on Sundays