This buzzing pasta spot serves up fresh, rotating dishes during a brief lunch window, drawing crowds who crave authentic Italian flavors in Toronto.
"Open for: LunchPrice range: $$To dine here is akin to making a religious pilgrimage: It takes patience, practice, and prayer. The once “secretive” spot in the gentrifying “mechanical-industrial” strip of Geary Street is no longer under wraps. Swarms of people congregate and wait at least an hour outside before opening, a fact not lost on owner and chef Leandro Baldassarre (formerly of three-Michelin-starred Dal Pescatore). With a collected demeanor and without gimmicks, Baldassarre offers what’s considered the city’s best fresh pasta, along with rustic Southern Italian dishes. The cushy gnocchi, graced with shaved black truffles, tastes like a woodland retreat; ravioli are pleasure pockets filled with ricotta and spinach; and rustic tomato-beef ragu intertwines with thin ribbons of tagliatelle. To complement the heavenly pastas, Baldassarre sources prime ingredients for grazing, such as fior di latte, salty-sweet crudo di parma (aged 18 months), and zingy fagiolini (green beans imbued with mint, olive oil, and vinegar).Know before you go: It’s tiny inside; my best suggestion is to visit on Wednesday, when it’s not as busy, and arrive an hour before the shop opens." - Tiffany Leigh
"If you're looking for authentic Italian pastas prepared with recipes passed down for generations, check this place out. Famiglia Baldessare is a small-scale factory for handmade pastas, and includes a number of Toronto's favorite restaurants as clients—except from noon to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays when the shop opens a small lunch counter where pasta fanatics line up to indulge in the city's best handmade pastas. This lunch counter is something of a mirage that pops out of an otherwise industrial setting. It offers a rotating menu, usually with a shape of the day prepared in two different ways—such as cavatelli with broccoli rabe and pecorino, or cavatelli with homemade sausage—as well as a burrata starter, a basic salad and perhaps a crudo. Waiting in line for a pasta lunch here is a rite of passage in the city's foodie scene, and an unmissable experience that's absolutely worth the wait." - Todd Plummer
"To dine here is akin to making a religious pilgrimage: It takes patience, practice, and prayer. The once-“secretive” spot in the gentrifying “mechanical-industrial” strip of Geary Street is no longer under wraps. Swarms of people congregate and wait at least an hour outside before opening, a fact not lost on owner and chef Leandro Baldassarre (formerly of three-Michelin-starred Dal Pescatore). With a collected demeanor and without gimmicks, Baldassarre offers what’s considered the city’s best fresh pasta, along with rustic Southern Italian dishes. The cushy gnocchi, amped up on freshly shaved black truffles, tastes like a woodland retreat; ravioli are happy pockets filled with ricotta and spinach; and rustic tomato-beef ragu intertwines with supple strands of tagliatelle. To complement the heavenly pastas, Baldassarre sources prime ingredients for grazing, such as fior di latte, salty-sweet crudo di parma (aged 18 months), and zingy fagiolini (green beans imbued with mint, olive oil, and vinegar)." - Tiffany Leigh
"The best fresh pasta in the city with traditional techniques hailing from northern regions of Italy." - PRINT_COLLECTIVE
"When Covid-19 gutted Famiglia Baldassarre’s wholesale pasta business and put their modest restaurant on hold too, owner Leandro Baldassarre was forced to go all-in on retail-, its third and formerly smallest revenue stream. “We were 50-per-cent-plus wholesale before,” he says. “Shifting to almost-all-retail was weird. But hey, it helped.”"
