Ask a cookbook author or a chef for their opinion on the best Italian cookbooks and the result is likely a love letter to food in general. Italian cuisine has captured hearts (and stomachs) the world over because it is comforting, satisfying, economical, and easy to prepare, making it as loved by those who are cooking it as those to whom it is served. 

When it comes to compiling a list of the best Italian cookbooks, certain books come up again and again. What seems to be a common thread among these classics is straightforward instructions that work, explanations that place recipes in a cultural and historical context, and descriptions that help to understand ingredients and how to use them. These things make us good cooks and, combined with the personality of the authors who manage to convey the very essence of Italian food—the smells of the kitchen; the flavors and freshness of seasonal ingredients; the unfussy preparations—make the following Italian cookbooks universally timeless.

• Best Overall: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
• Best Vintage Cookbook: The Talisman Cookbook by Ada Boni
• Best Regional Cooking: Italian Food by Elizabeth David
• Best for Bakers: The Italian Baker, Revised: The Classic Tastes of the Italian Countryside by Carol Field
• Best Timeless Recipes: The Classic Food of Northern Italy by Anna Del Conte
• Best Food History: The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews by Edda Servi Machlin

Our Top Picks 

Best Overall: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan

Region: Northern Italy | Number of pages: 704 | Date published: 1992

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Why we chose it: It’s like three cookbooks in one, a “culinary bible” that combines Hazan’s two previous cookbooks plus 50 new recipes.

No one tops a Best Italian Cookbooks list like Marcella Hazan. Chef Fergus Henderson, of famed London restaurant St John, has said that Hazan single-handedly changed food at home as he knew it, and I’m quite sure he is not the only one. 

“I have quite a lot of Italian books, but Marcella Hazan is peerless,” cookbook author Diana Henry wrote to me. “Her recipes simply work. And her voice is quite direct, not like that of a schoolteacher, but quite no-nonsense. I have never cooked a dish of hers that didn’t work and many have become part of my core repertoire.” 

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, which was published in 1992, is a combination of Marcella’s previous books, The Classic Italian Cookbook (her first, from 1973) and More Classic Italian Cooking (1978), and the idea was that it be a manual for cooks of any skill level, a bible of the most beloved Italian recipes for beginners and professionals alike—and it certainly does not disappoint. 

“Every so often, I pull her books off the shelf and flick through them, seeing whether I notice a recipe that’s new, or a combination of flavors that I like,” Henry continues. “There’s a pot roasted leg of lamb that is slow-cooked with juniper berries until the meat is soft. It’s one of my very favourite dishes. I have often cooked it on New Year’s Eve. It’s amazing to think that there aren’t even any photos in these books. You don’t need them. You just need to follow her voice.”

Best Vintage Cookbook: The Talisman Italian Cookbook by Ada Boni

Region: Lazio/Central Italy | Number of pages: 320 | Date published: 1950 (original Italian version 1929)

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Why we chose it: The original is Italy’s best known cookbook and was written for Italians.

Roman magazine editor Ada Boni’s Il Talismano della Felicità (literally meaning ‘the talisman of happiness’), was first published in Italy in 1929. An enormous collection of well over a thousand classic recipes, it quickly became the Joy of Cooking for many Italian households. In the 1950s, an abridged English version for the U.S. and UK markets came out, simply called the Talisman Italian Cookbook, which was meant to introduce Americans and British home cooks to Italian flavors. It was also lovingly taken up by many Italian immigrants wanting to recreate the taste of home for their families.

While almost a century old, the Talisman continues to be an important reference book, covering every aspect of Italian gastronomy, including an introduction on the Italian way of eating and cooking and still-relevant homestyle recipes. From braised endives to stuffed peaches and ricotta ravioli or a thrifty chocolate cake made with only pantry items and milk, Boni’s no-nonsense recipes are still among my favorites when I want to produce something that channels my inner nonna. It is the only one in this list that was originally written in Italian and then translated later into English.

Best Regional Cooking: Italian Food by Elizabeth David

Region: All of Italy | Number of pages: 368 | Date published: 1954

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Why we chose it: Elizabeth David was one of the first to document Italy’s complex regional cuisine, and her writing makes the best kind of armchair travel.

Elizabeth David’s Italian Food, which was originally published in 1954, has a permanent spot near my bed. It is just one of those books that I can flip through at any time and read like a novel. Her recipes can be short and sweet, with a few sentences to describe how to make pasta with ricotta sauce, for example, or they can come with a beautiful description that will immediately send you armchair traveling—the market stories in particular, or the one where a glass of dry, sharp white wine is poured over risotto before serving in a Venetian cantina, where each forkful takes a bit of rice and a bit of wine. 

David was well ahead of her time, describing regional recipes that are still unknown today and urging her readers to use only good quality olive oil; differentiating between coppa or rigatino; and advising when and when not to use parmesan cheese—and always with her quick wit. For this reason, you can still enjoy reading and cooking from Italian Food nearly 70 years after it was written. Seattle chef Renee Erickson echoes my love for this book, writing of it, “I love the regional recipes. I also love the style of recipe, much less information than a cookbook of today. It forces us all to pay attention to the ingredients rather than the recipe. I think that makes us better cooks.”

Best for Bakers: The Italian Baker, Revised: The Classic Tastes of the Italian Countryside by Carol Field

Region: All of Italy | Number of pages: 417 | Date published: 1985

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Why we chose it: It is the ultimate collection of Italian baked goods, from bread to cookies to celebratory cakes.

When asked about her favorite Italian cookbook, Rome-based Kristina Gill, author of Tasting Rome, wrote, “I think the one who holds the biggest spot in my heart is Carol Field’s The Italian Baker. It was a gift to me 25 years ago, and I used it so much learning to bake Italian bread.” I was thrilled to hear this as The Italian Baker has been my baking bible for the past 15 years, too. Originally published in 1985, Carol Field took an incredibly heroic approach with this book. She spent two years searching all of Italy from Como to Palermo for artisan bakers, learning from them, studying with them, and documenting the recipes from all over the peninsula at a time when more and more baked goods were becoming industrially produced and artisans were a dying breed.

Regional specialties, celebration breads, sweets, and recipes involving leftover bread all feature in this book with simple line drawings of step-by-step processes to help understand how to shape particular breads. She ‘translated’ the recipes to suit American kitchens and measurements, and, very practically, includes instructions for hand-mixing or machine-mixing, making this a suitable book for whatever tools or experience you have in baking. If you love Italian breads and baked goods, from panettone to focaccia to maritozzi, as well as many breads lost and unheard of, you need to seek this one out. It is a must-have for any baker.

Best Timeless Recipes: The Classic Food of Northern Italy by Anna Del Conte

Region: Northern Italy | Number of pages: 240 | Date published: 1995

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Why we chose it: A timeless collection of the most classic northern Italian recipes.

Currently in her nineties, Milanese writer Anna Del Conte is considered the doyenne of Italian food writing in Britain, where she has called home since 1949. Nigella Lawson makes it no secret that she is a devoted fan and wrote in 2009: “There are really only two important influences in my cooking life: my mother and Anna Del Conte… Anyone who loves food – reading about it, cooking it, eating it – should have her books.”

Originally published in 1996, Anna Del Conte’s Classic Food of Northern Italy, including 150 regional recipes, was updated and reissued in 2017. Covering the 10 northernmost of Italy’s 20 regions, Anna del Conte delivers the context behind these regional dishes in straightforward recipes that stay true to each region’s traditions. “I get very annoyed when I read recipes for ossobuco alla milanese containing tomatoes,” begins her recipe for Milanese ossobuco with “magical gremolata,” as she goes on to explain that tomatoes don’t come from Lombardy and therefore aren’t usually part of the region’s repertoire.

Angela Frenda, the food editor of Italy’s leading newspaper Corriere della Sera, wrote to me that her favorite Italian cookbooks are those of the Simili Sisters, Margherita and Valeria (who were teachers at Marcella and Victor Hazan’s cooking school in Bologna in 1976). These sadly aren’t available in English, but Frenda’s favorite Italian cookbooks in English are also Anna Del Conte’s. “The woman who is credited with bringing true Italian home cooking to the Anglo-Saxons,” as she says. “Her recipes are an example of classic modern. Timeless,” Frenda added. This is one for those who want to dive deeper into the classic dishes of the northern regions. 

Best Food History: The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews by Edda Servi Machlin

Region: Tuscany, Lazio | Number of pages: 254 | Date published: 1981

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Why we chose it: It is a food time capsule of a lost Tuscan community.

One of the most precious Italian cookbooks that I own is The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews. Published in 1981, the recipes and the stories recounted by Edda Servi Machlin are of her childhood in Tuscany’s deep south, in the flourishing Jewish village of Pitigliano. It’s like time traveling directly to this fascinating town in the Maremma of the 1930s, into a community that today no longer exists. Machlin was born in Pitigliano in 1926. After narrowly escaping extermination camps during the Second World War, her family settled in the U.S. in 1958.

Her first cookbook is full of unfussy, simple family recipes, a wonderful mix of Tuscan, Roman and Jewish specialties. In it you’ll find ricotta-filled pizza, deep fried artichokes (her ‘hymn to an artichoke’ essay is one of my favorite pieces of food writing) and fried mozzarella sandwiches, pappa al pomodoro, polenta pasticciata (a hearty peasant dish of baked polenta with porcini mushroom and cheese sauce), beet risotto (“add rice and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, until rice begins to make a sharp, dry noise”) and gems like olio di arrosto (oil from a roast). It also includes lost specialties of this part of Tuscany, like borricche (cinnamon pastries) and sfratti (honey and walnut logs). But what really makes this such a special book is Machlin’s moving memoir that recounts a “vanished way of life” with old black and white photographs and menus of Jewish celebrations. This is a book for anyone interested in food or war history, disappearing traditions, and this largely unknown part of Tuscany’s Maremma, on the border of Lazio. It is also, of course, a book of excellent, incredibly simple, and kosher Italian recipes.

How We Chose These Products

We chose these books by asking Italophile food editors and writers for their favorite Italian cookbooks. The results were very much “classics”. In other words, older cookbooks that were perhaps groundbreaking at their time, which generations of Italians and non-Italians cooked out of and are still considered the most essential, best Italian cookbooks to turn to—timeless. They were also selected for their availability in general (one is now out of print, but you can still find good second-hand copies of it) and that they are in English.

Features to Keep in Mind

Diversity of Cuisine

These beloved Italian cookbooks are not all the same because Italy is not one cuisine—it is 20 cuisines from 20 regions. While many of these cookbooks are focused on Northern Italy, some such as Italian Food and the Italian Baker tend to cover the whole peninsula. The most specific book may be The Cuisine of the Italian Jews, and what that title doesn’t convey is that many of its recipes happen to be typically Tuscan (panzanella, for example) or typically Roman. This is because the author, Edda Servi Machlin, came from a tiny inland town in Maremma, Pitigliano, on the border of the regions of Tuscany and Lazio, which was once an important Jewish center.

Beginner-Friendly Recipes

As cookbooks go, many of these books were designed as manuals for home cooks—Ada Boni’s Talisman, for example, and Marcella Hazan’s Essentials. However, the style of older cookbooks, such as the Talisman, means that some knowledge and skillset on the part of the cook is assumed. Elizabeth David’s Italian Food, published in the 1950s, is of a more conversational style, too; it isn’t written in the traditional format with ingredients listed. If anything, the more complicated cookbook is Anna Del Conte’s Classic Food of Northern Italy, perhaps in part for some of the ingredients she requests (capon, sweetbreads, venison, or cuttlefish, for example). But then many of the desserts are typically simple—strawberries or cantaloupe splashed with balsamic vinegar or a simple meringue turned into semifreddo with three ingredients.

Authors

The authors included here are a mixture of Italians and British or American writers. Anna Del Conte was born in Milan in 1925 and moved to England in her mid-twenties as an au pair and has lived there ever since. Both Marcella Hazan and Edda Servi were Italian born and later in life found themselves living in America, where they were both encouraged by friends and family to share their recipes in the form of a book. These three transplanted Italians wrote about their food memories for the public in their adopted homes. British-born Elizabeth David and American Carol Field both traveled extensively in Italy, studying and talking to Italians to produce recipes that brought to light the incredible depth of Italy’s regional food for their fellow English speakers. Only the Roman writer Ada Boni wrote for an Italian public, and her cookbook was then translated into English. 

Ask the Experts

Q: What Italian cookbook is best for an amateur cook or someone who doesn’t have a lot of kitchen equipment?

Carol Field’s The Italian Baker is written wonderfully for a beginner or those unfamiliar with the recipes, so it is a great place to start learning about the incredible baking repertoire that she learned from Italy’s artisan bakers. There are many kinds of bread, but also cookies, cakes, pizza, and other dishes that involve bread like soups and dumplings. Every recipe includes a different set of instructions for using just your hands or if you have a mixer or some other processor, so you can also make all these recipes with simply your hands and a bowl. 

Q: I would like to learn some really authentic Italian recipes. Which book should I choose?

If you want to go really old school, Ada Boni has the most traditional recipes. Her book was the sort of cookbook given to couples as a wedding present, and most Italian households still have a copy on their shelves. Her recipes are simple and the instructions might assume you already know quite a bit about the dish, but what you have are the recipes written to help Italian housewives a century ago—you couldn’t get closer to nonna’s cooking. 

Q: I am looking for the kind of recipes that my Italian mom used to make. Can you suggest a book from this list?

It would all depend on the vast regional aspect of Italian cooking, so you might want to look at cookbooks that focus on the region of your Italian heritage. But in general, Marcella Hazan’s Essentials is an interesting book for Italian Americans, because it was written for Americans by an Italian living in America.

Our Take

Whether you are loyal to Marcella’s tomato sauce recipe or to the comforting voice of Anna Del Conte, each of these classic tomes that have taught generations of households within and outside of Italy to cook good Italian food has something to give—helping us to look carefully at a regional ingredient, to listen to the sound of the rice cooking, or to shape a forgotten bread or pastry with our own hands—and perhaps, as Erickson says, they can even make us better cooks.

The post The Best Italian Cookbooks Are the Classics appeared first on Saveur.

The first sacks of coffee beans in Italy came from Egypt, arriving in the markets of Venice in 1570. Initially regarded by the church as a dangerous drink, it didn’t take long for even the Pope to become enamored of the seed of the Coffea plant, and Europe’s first coffee houses were born right there in the lagoon city. It was centuries, though, before caffè espresso became a symbol of Italian quality and a beloved ritual, and it wasn’t until 1884 that the first espresso machine was invented by Angelo Moriondo in Turin to help baristas make many more coffees in a short amount of time. It took another 20 years before the machine was reproduced for other bars. Even then it wasn’t until after the Second World War when people finally had the time to sit and enjoy coffee that the ritual really took off, entering people’s homes as well.

These days, the beverage is an indisputable fixture of Italian culture, where there is no better way to start the day than with a classic Moka pot at home or standing at the counter of the local bar. In Italy, the benchmark cup is an intensely flavored coffee, achieved through the toasting process for a dark roast “all’italiana”. It’s preferred by Italians, suggests Vincenzo Fogliano, director of the Department of Food Quality and Design at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, because it renders the coffee less acidic and less harsh on the stomach.

A good espresso, even one made at home, should always be full-bodied, full-flavored, and fragrant, served in tiny cups and drunk piping hot in just a few sips. The best Italian coffee brands manage to achieve this trifecta through their unique blends. Understanding those blends, how the coffee is roasted, and the difference in varieties will help any Italian coffee enthusiast choose their right bag. 

• Best Overall: Lavazza 100% Arabica Medium Roast
• Best Arabica: Illy Classico Medium Roast
• Best Roast: Caffe Vergnano 100% Arabica Espresso Roast
• Best Espresso: Caffe Kimbo Espresso Napoletano
• Best Artisan Roast: Ditta Artigianale Mamma Mia

Our Top Picks 

Best Overall: Lavazza 100% Arabica Medium Roast

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Luigi Lavazza began selling coffee from his bottega in Torino in 1895, and one of Italy’s first coffee companies is still a family business. Exporting almost half of its production, it is Italy’s most well-known and beloved coffee brand. Their claim to fame is that the coffee blend, the miscela, as it’s known in Italian, was invented by Lavazza himself. Their range includes whole beans, pre-ground coffee and coffee pods. Their Crema e Gusto blend is one of Italy’s favorites, a 70 percent Arabica 30 percent Robusta dark roast for that bold, classic Italian flavor. Meanwhile, their Super Crema is one of the blends with the highest concentration of Robusta for that coveted crema on the top of an espresso.

Best Arabica: Illy Classico Medium Roast 

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Based in Trieste in northeastern Italy, the Illy coffee brand was named after its Hungarian founder, Francesco Illy. Illy invented a coffee machine shortly before the Second World War, as well as a process that keeps coffee fresh for export in pressurized tins, something that still sets them apart from other coffee brands. In 1980, Illy became the first Italian coffee brand in the U.S., where it is still one of the most famous Italian brands. Their Classico is so-named for good reason: It is balanced, smooth, and rich, made with a blend of nine Arabica coffees. It’s perfect for the home Moka pot. As a bonus, the tins that their coffee comes in are reusable.

Best Roast: Caffe Vergnano 100% Arabica Espresso Roast

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One of Italy’s oldest coffee roasters, Vergnano was born in 1882 when Domenico Vergnano opened his shop near Turin in Piedmont. Today Caffe Vergnano is still run by the same family and remains one of Italy’s favorites. Caffe Vergnano prides itself on their unique, artisanal, slow-roasting method, and that they roast each origin separately before blending them, which gives the beans a more evenly-balanced roast. Their Arabica Espresso roast is a good example of their signature slow-roasted coffee, which brings out the delicate flavor and aromas of Central and South American Arabica coffees for a well-rounded cup.

Best Espresso: Caffe Kimbo Espresso Napoletano

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This coffee roaster was founded by four brothers in 1963 in Naples, Italy’s undisputed espresso capital. Their signature “Espresso Napoletano” coffee is decidedly Neapolitan in character: strong flavored, intense, and smooth with a dark roast and a percentage of Robusta that produces a crema “like you find at a bar in Naples,” as they like to say.

Best Artisan Roast: Ditta Artigianale Mamma Mia

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Micro-roasters are becoming more and more popular across Italy, with many getting attention for their craft not only because of the quality of the coffee, but also for highlighting aspects around coffee production such as sustainability and biodiversity. Ditta Artigianale is a great example of how well-received this outlook has been in Florence. In their first year, they opened not one but two shops, which have proven to become the city’s most popular cafes. 

Founder Francesco Sanapo, a world barista champion, created the Mamma Mia blend in honor of his mother, who does not like particularly acidic or fruity notes that can be detected in some coffees. To obtain the right balance for this 100 percent Arabica blend, Francesco was careful not to dark roast the beans—which come from Peru, Honduras, Costa Rica and Ethiopia—a composition that he says was studied to give the best results for both espresso and for those who prefer milk in their coffee. “In this cup, you’ll find an intense flavor, smooth body with a long aftertaste,” he explains. “The flavor is characterized by notes of toasted almond, prunes, dates, milk chocolate, and caramel.” Francesco says the Mamma Mia name was also chosen to recognize the all-female production behind this blend. “In fact, all the coffees present in the blend are produced by exceptional women that I personally met during my travels.”

Features to Keep in Mind

Whole Beans vs. Pre-Ground

Buying whole beans means you can grind them yourself just before making coffee for the freshest flavor, always. Whole beans will also keep longer. However, not everyone has a coffee grinder and the convenience of having coffee pre-ground is appealing for many. When buying pre-ground coffee, pay attention to the size of the granules. There are usually two types: an extra fine grind is for the Moka pot or espresso machine, while a regular grind is suitable for filter coffee, from auto drip to pour-over to French press.

Robusta vs. Arabica

Understanding the differences between these two coffee bean varieties explains the preference for certain blends in Italy, and also helps you decide what blend of coffee to choose for your preferred cup. 

The Arabica variety has a smooth, sweet taste, with fruity and slightly acidic notes, while Robusta is (as it sounds, “robust”) more intense, stronger, nuttier, and more bitter. It has a much higher caffeine content, too; almost double that found in Arabica. Although Robusta is often regarded by coffee aficionados as the “lesser” variety in terms of quality and flavor, its presence in a blend is responsible for the prized hazelnut-colored ‘crema’ on top of a good espresso. Those looking for a bigger hit of caffeine will appreciate a mix with more Robusta in it, as well.

In the northern regions of Italy, the ideal blend of espresso seems to be mostly Arabica with perhaps a small percentage, roughly 20 to 30 percent, of Robusta for a fragrant, not too delicate cup. In the South, the preference is for a higher concentration of the intense flavor of darkly-roasted Robusta. A glass of cold water is often served alongside coffee in the central-southern regions of Italy to chase the espresso with, and a bit of added sugar is common (to the extent that some bars, such as the famous Bar Mexico in Naples, will serve you an unsweetened coffee only if requested beforehand).

When choosing a coffee blend, you should always take into consideration how the coffee will be extracted and served: short or long, with or without milk, and how much caffeine you like. If you love espresso, a proportion of Robusta for a good crema and a dark roast for full flavor is ideal, and if you can, grind your own whole beans for maximum freshness and flavor. If a long black or caffè americano is your preference, you should go for a 100 percent Arabica blend, where the delicate aroma and berry and chocolate notes will be highlighted. For cappuccino lovers or those who like milk with their coffee, a blend with a percentage of Robusta, much like for espresso, is a good idea. The stronger roast and flavor will be countered by the sweet milk.

Italian Coffee Regions

The main coffee roasters in Italy are found predominantly in the southern region of Campania, which is not surprising as its capital, Naples, is considered the center of coffee in Italy. It is the home to coffee brands such as Kimbo and Motta, and it is where you’ll find the biggest consumers of coffee in the country, plus the namesake for the first at-home coffeemaker (a drip brew pot for the stove top where water is passed through the coffee by gravity, the Napoletana). Naples is also the place where the charitable practice of the caffe sospeso (the “suspended coffee”) exists, an act of kindness, where those who can afford to will leave a payment at the bar, covering in advance the coffee for someone who can’t afford it.

The rest of Italy’s coffee roasters are concentrated in the north of the country—Emilia Romagna and Piedmont (where you can find historical roasters such as Vergnano and Lavazza, for example) in particular.

Artisan coffee roasters are gaining more popularity in Italy, too. Tuscany, in particular, has a very good offering including our favorite, Ditta Artigianale in Florence; Le Piantagioni del Caffè in Livorno, Piansa; and Slitti Cioccolato e Caffè near Pistoia.

How We Chose These Products

These products were chosen based on the reputation and quality of the products in Italy, as well as the availability of these Italian brands overseas.

Ask the Experts

Q: Do Italian coffee brands always make blends?

Speaking with Carolina Vergnano of Caffe Vergnano on her family’s long-standing brand, she explains that the concept of a blend, rather than single-origin coffees, is a very Italian thing, “Like the recipe for tiramisu, coffee is also a recipe and in the end the coffee producer is an artist and each coffee has a different personality,” she explains. The blend crafts that perfect flavor desired by the drinker. Italians love the bitterness and persistent flavor of espresso, for that small, short cup of strong, bitter coffee that is drunk in just moments. 

Q: Why is espresso so popular in Italy?

There is generally one ounce of espresso in a cup, and “in those 30ml [1 oz] of coffee, there is content, there are values, raw materials,” Verganano says. “There is in that cup an entire journey, from the plant, to the art of roasting, to the method of extracting the coffee. The extraction is all that the Italian espresso machine is meant to draw out—the aroma, the flavor, the crema. There is a world, the journey, the family. It’s much more than just a cup.”

Our Take

These Italian coffee brands also happen to be historic; some of them still run in the same families, built on the traditions, tastes, and habits found in their respective Italian regions. The coffee they produce is therefore made for a particular style. Knowing how the blends are made, understanding how this information can be put to use when making your morning coffee, and whether you need whole or pre-ground beans can all contribute to the best experience tasting Italy in your own cup.

The post For the Best Italian Coffee Brands, It’s All About the Blend appeared first on Saveur.

To make fresh pasta at home, you could simply arm yourself with a long rolling pin, some elbow grease and an even longer wooden board, as sfogline (the name of the women who roll sheets of pasta by hand) have done for generations in Emilia Romagna. And, to wit, there is a very good argument to rolling pasta that way—just see what chef Evan Funke has to say about it. But the early-20th century invention of pasta makers gave many home cooks the option of making fresh pasta quickly and easily, and do to this day.

A mini-history lesson: In 1930, just outside of Padova, Italy, Otello Marcato created the first pasta machine in the workshop behind his home. He would ride around with them strapped to the back of his bike, trying to sell the machines in neighbouring villages. A couple of years later, Imperia, a company based in Piedmont, produced their pasta machine with an eye toward exporting them to Italian immigrants in the U.S., who found that the contraption allowed them to easily create a taste of home in their new country.

Imperia’s machines, as well as those made by Marcato, have barely changed since they were first made, and should still be the go-to when it comes to seeking out your first pasta machine. There are also electric pasta rolling and shaping attachments made for many different brands of stand mixers such as KitchenAid. Professional and semi-professional machines with extruders are also on the market, which can create shapes very quickly that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to make by hand.

Once you have one, there are endless possibilities for what you can make with even the most basic machine. (And let’s not be limited only to pasta: you can technically roll out any kind of dough here—it is excellent for super thin, crunchy crackers or pastry dough). Rome-based food writer Rachel Roddy, author of An A-Z Pasta, inherited her Imperia machine from a friend, along with some very good guidance on where to keep it. 

“She not only gave me a practical lesson and showed me how easy and intuitive the machine is for making all sorts of shapes,” Roddy remembers. “She suggested I didn’t hide the Imperia in a cupboard, rather that it sat in an accessible, visible place. It was the best advice and I am sure part of why I use it so often.”

When it comes to choosing a pasta machine for use at home, I feel that manual is the best option, at least to start. Meryl Feinstein, Pasta Social Club founder and resident pasta maker at Food52, agrees. “If you’re making pasta at a production level, opt for something larger and electric,” she says. “But for the home cook (myself included!), I find rolling pasta with a hand crank provides a better understanding of what’s happening to the dough.” Read on for our top recommendations and tips from experts, and then get rolling. 

Our Top Picks

• Best Overall: Marcato Classic Atlas 150 Pasta Machine
• Best Entry Level: Imperia Pasta Machine
• Best for a Variety of Shapes: KitchenAid Pasta Press attachment
• Best for Serious Pasta Makers: La Monferrina Dolly Electric Pasta Machine

Best Overall: Marcato Classic Atlas 150 Pasta Machine

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Marcato’s most popular product is by far the Atlas 150, a chrome steel machine that comes in eight shiny and matte colours to match your kitchen aesthetic. An advantage of Marcato machines is that their rollers have 10 different thicknesses, ranging from 0.5mm to 4.8mm, which allows you to have a few more options. The tagliolini and fettuccine attachment makes 1.5mm to 6.5mm noodles, and there are also 12 other optional attachments for different shapes and types of pasta. Feinstein is also a fan. “I’ve tried my hand at several brands, and every time I go back to my manual Marcato Atlas 150,” she says. “It may not have the speed of an electric machine, but it’ll churn out beautifully smooth and consistent pasta sheets every time.” You can, however, upgrade your Atlas with its ‘pastadriver’ motor fitting. This turns your manual machine into an electric one, meaning you won’t need to clamp it onto a surface to use.

Best Entry Level: Imperia Pasta Maker Machine

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The classic Imperia machine offers rollers of six thicknesses and an attachment for tagliatelle (2mm thick noodles) and fettuccine (6.5mm thick), while their Titania model is an all-in-one machine with the noodle cutter already incorporated. These stainless steel machines are robust, particularly the Titania, and have a charmingly vintage look. That’s because Imperia hasn’t actually ever updated the design of the machines—you’ll find them unchanged from the way they were in the advertisements of the 1950s. Like Roddy, I own and use my Imperia the most, and find it a sturdy and reliable pasta machine that is so simple to use. My kids love using it just as much as I do.

Best for a Variety of Shapes: KitchenAid Pasta Press

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If you already own a KitchenAid mixer and pasta roller, and you’re wondering where to take your pasta game next, then try using one of these. It attaches to your mixer and comes with six different dies for making bucatini, spaghetti, rigatoni, fusilli and two sizes of macaroni. The press comes with a built-in wire cutter to control the length of your pasta, and it’s a favourite of blogger Alec Morris of Pasta Et Al. He loves it for being able to make “pasta shapes that would otherwise be very fiddly and time-consuming to shape by hand, or available only as dried supermarket pasta.” Aside from being able to make last-minute rigatoni very quickly, he adds that it’s worth considering if just starting out with extruded pasta. “Whatever machine you go for, interchangeable plates will add a whole range of new pasta shapes to your repertoire,” he says.

Best for Serious Pasta Makers: La Monferrina Dolly

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La Monferrina is the other half of the Imperia company (also known as Imperia & Monferrina) which specializes in electric and professional pasta machines. When I asked one of the pastai that I admire most—Yumhwa Lee, the private dining chef behind Benfatto95 in Singapore—which extruder he recommends, he zeroed in on Monferrina. While he uses a La Monferrina P3, which is a restaurant-grade electric pasta machine, he recommends keen pasta makers look to the Monferrina Dolly for smaller-scale, tabletop production.The Dolly is a compact, all-in-one electric machine that mixes, kneads (it works for bread or pizza dough, too), and extrudes shapes that would be otherwise tricky to do by hand. Like in professional pasta machines, the dies are made of bronze, which creates a desirably rough texture that helps sauce cling to each noodle (teflon-coated inserts are also available for a smoother texture). With one of these, you can roll out flat sheets of pasta for making lasagne or filled pasta and, with the option of dies available, practically every pasta shape you can think of, from alphabets and risoni to wagon wheels and shells.

Features to Keep in Mind

Electric or Manual

Traditional pasta machines are manual, meaning you have to turn a crank with one hand while guiding the sheet of pasta out of the machine with the other. It’s a skill you learn like a dance: the more you do it, the better you get. An electric machine does not require cranking, which is helpful if you are making huge quantities of pasta or need to use both hands. However, since they produce very similar results to manually-rolled pasta sheets, you may want to think twice about spending the extra money—especially when you consider the longevity and maintenance of a motorized machine or attachment. Remember that manual machines have fewer delicate parts, which means they will last longer in the end. They are also considerably easier to maintain and clean, requiring only a dusting of flour.

Rollers

The ideal rollers should be made out of metal (aluminum or stainless steel, usually) rather than plastic or rubber, and are often in standard widths of 150mm or 180mm. The product name usually indicates how wide they are; in other words, the Marcato Atlas 150 has rollers that are 150mm wide. The width between the rollers, and hence the thickness of your pasta, is controlled by a numbered knob, and machines of different designs and brands will have a different number of widths. The main function of these widths is to slowly elongate and thin the pasta sheet, which is rolled at each width in order from thickest to thinnest. They also give you the option of deciding how thin the pasta should be. A more robust pasta, say pappardelle to be dressed in a hearty beef ragu, would benefit from not being too thin that it breaks. Tonnarelli noodles also need to be on the thicker side. A filled pasta such as ravioli can be thinner, as you end up with a double layer of pasta. I own both an Imperia and Marcato pasta machine, and I personally appreciate having more settings on the roller widths on the Marcato; it allows for a little bit more precision when deciding how thin or thick you would like your pasta.

Types of Pasta Shapes

You can make numerous different pasta shapes with even the most basic pasta machine. A flat sheet of pasta can give you lasagne sheets, maltagliati (or ‘badly cut’ shapes, originally born from pasta scraps), cannelloni pasta tubes, and filled pasta of every shape imaginable. And with a few extra pasta tools, you can create ridged or embossed shapes such as garganelli or corzetti. Many pasta machines already come with attachments for spaghetti, tagliolini, tagliatelle or fettuccine—which vary in widths from 1.5mm to 6.5mm—although you could also make these by simply using a sharp knife or a pastry cutter to slice through rolled sections of the dough. 

Additional Attachments

There are a variety of attachments and accessories available to help you get the most out of your pasta maker. One of the more interesting is the ravioli attachment, and both Imperia and Marcato make one. To use it, you have to artfully place two sheets of pasta inside, add the filling between them, and then crank slowly; the attachment does the rest. Other attachments can give you a crinkle-cut edge for pappardelle, reginette or malfaldine. Imperia has a ‘millegnocchi’ attachment for producing short pasta shapes like gnochetti sardi and cavatelli. 

Pasta Extruders

A pasta extruder is a manual or electric device that pushes the pasta dough through a die for creating long and short pasta shapes, from spaghetti and fettuccine to rigatoni and fusilli. The dough is forced through a cylinder and squeezed out of the die, which you can change for each shape of pasta, and cut at your preferred lengths as it exits the extruder (either manually or with a rotating blade). A manual extruder can be as simple as a metal cylinder with a hand crank (much like pasta rollers) and changeable discs that hold the die for each pasta shape. Marcato’s Regina is a manual extruder with steel dies that has a larger body for mixing the dough incorporated into it, as well.

One of the biggest differences with using a pasta extruder is the consistency of the pasta dough. Lee explains that you also need to pay attention to the flour you use with an extruder. “The only thing about using extruders is selecting only coarse ground semolina and not over hydrating the mixture—usually one part water to three parts semolina, although this could change depending on the shape,” Lee advises. Morris has similar advice for the KitchenAid extruder as well, telling me that “the real trick to extruder success is managing your dough moisture. Unlike non-extruded pasta dough, it has to be relatively dry, resembling buttered breadcrumbs (it should be crumbly, but hold together when pinched between your fingers).”

Ask the Experts

How do I clean my pasta maker?

I once lent my pasta machine to my elderly neighbour in Florence, who lamented that her son had borrowed her pasta machine and destroyed it by putting it in the dishwasher. Do not wash your pasta machine with water or soap—just dust off the flour. I find it can be useful to roll some excess pasta dough through it to pick up the stray flour inside. Roddy has a great tool for cleaning her Imperia: “I clean with a paint brush with nice soft bristles,” and adds, “at best, wipe with a damp cloth.”

What’s the best way to store fresh pasta? 

If you’re not cooking the pasta right away or within a couple or hours, the best option is dusting well with some fine semolina or some extra flour, then drying or freezing it. Long pasta can be rolled into loose ‘nests’ and left on a wooden board to dry, and Roddy hangs hers up over coat hangers. For longer-term storage, Feinstein opts for the freezer. “Just freeze the pasta on a semolina-dusted tray until solid, about 25 minutes, then shake out the excess flour, transfer to a freezer-safe bag, and return to the freezer,” she says. “When you’re ready to cook it, go straight from the freezer to boiling water—no need to thaw. Frozen pasta tastes best the sooner you cook it, but will last for up to three months.”

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