Sebastian Sardo isn’t a fan of whole wheat pasta. It’s hard to find a good one and even when you do, it’s not very good. So Sardo, the brand manager for Food52 Pantry, made it his mission to find a producer of delicious pasta that had the nuttiness and texture of whole wheat pasta with the pleasant taste and all-around appeal of regular pasta. The result is Food52’s slow-dried pasta, which includes bucatini, busiate, linguine, penne, pici, spaghett, and tortiglioni. These six items are part of the Food52 Pantry collection, which officially launches on Thursday, September 22nd.
The collection is over a year in the making. Sardo joined Food52 after a six-year stint as a food buyer for Eataly USA. His first task was to narrow down a list of over 500 wish list ingredients to a handful that Food52 could source, produce, and sell in our shop. The result is 45 pantry staples including extra-virgin olive oil (an everyday version and one for those extra-special recipes), four varieties of flour (all-purpose, bread, cake, and pastry), three types of plump canned tomatoes, four kinds of California-grown rice, an assortment of balsamic and sweet white vinegars, oats, baking chocolate, peanut butter, coffee, and condiments. “We wanted to start with some foundational ingredients that can become part of people’s everyday cooking and go from there,” says Food52 founder Amanda Hesser.