Shortly after Stefano Secchi’s Rezdôra opened in 2019, it became New York City’s hottest Italian restaurant, earning a three-star rave review in the New York Times. The chef honed his talent at Massimo Bottura’s three-star Michelin-rated Osteria Francescana in Modena, and Rezdôra’s menu celebrates the cuisine of Emilia-Romagna. Everything on the menu is exquisite, but his pasta steals the show, from tortellini in brodo to capelletti verdi with roasted leeks and mushroom purée to tagliolini al ragù. While it's hard to narrow it down to one, uncertain patrons don't have to settle—they can quash their indecisiveness with the five-course pasta tasting menu.
If you’d like to emulate the pasta maestro himself, or one of the Emilia-Romagna grandmothers for whom his restaurant is named, here are five tips from Stefano Secchi to help you get rolling at home.
Ingredients
Use the best ingredients. Not as obvious as it sounds, Secchi says. “You don’t want flour that’s been sitting on the shelf for two years. Go buy nice flour. Doppio zero ‘00’ from Italy is my favorite.”
Freezing?
Never refrigerate the pasta after you roll it out. “If you’re going to make pasta that day, make the pasta dough and cover it in plastic wrap,” he says. Refrigerating the dough makes it contract when rolling. “You can’t get the thinnest you’re looking for when you have cold pasta dough, period.”
Instruments
Use a good recipe to cut down on flour. “The more flour you add, it becomes gummy,” he says. Secchi suggests weighing ingredients to cut down on bench flour.
Eggless Pasta
When making eggless pasta dough, use warm or hot water. Otherwise, the dough becomes sticky and difficult to work with.
Perfect easy meal
For an easy mess-free meal, try freezing freshly made stuffed and hand-rolled pasta in small bags, and put pomodoro sauce in ice cube trays. “Pop out three ice cubes of sauce and add a bit of water and cook the bags of the fresh pasta, and you have the most simple dinner with way less wash-up than you would have otherwise.”