An amateur anthropologist trying to track down the origins of pasta could drive herself insane. Legends abound. Dates conflict. Definitions are as slippery as freshly drained spaghetti. Did Marco Polo bring noodles from China to Italy in the thirteenth century? Did invading Arabs introduce something pasta-like to Sicily in the ninth century? Did pasta exist in ancient Greece? Does couscous count as pasta? Some scholars suggest that the first Italian pasta factory was licensed to open in Venice in 1740. Let the record state clearly that an Italian pasta factory seminal in its own way opened in Brooklyn in 2019.
If you’re assuming, as I did, that Forma Pasta Factory is a warehouse filled with conveyor belts, you’ll be either disappointed or relieved to learn that it’s more like a restaurant, a very small one on a quiet block in Greenpoint. By the strictest definition, it’s a factory, too: behind the same narrow counter where chefs tend simmering pots of sauce and assemble salads, a workstation is crowded with extruders.
Visit during the day and you can watch as dough takes the form of stubby, ribbed, slightly curved tubes called pipette, or of ruffle-edged sheets for lasagna. Bring them home raw, to cook yourself, or eat them on the patio out front, tossed in a luscious white ragù, nubs of pork sausage clinging to ridges, or layered with eggplant, amatriciana sauce, and Parmigiano Reggiano and baked until bubbling. (The menu is also available for delivery, as well as takeout; McCarren Park, which you can see from the front door, is perfect for a picnic.)
Of course, Forma is far from the first place in town to manufacture pasta. (One of the first pasta factories in America opened in Brooklyn in 1848.) What earns Forma its place on the historical time line is the product itself. In the past few years, others have tried, and failed, to give pasta the fast-casual treatment. At Forma, a young chef named Amit Rabinovich, who has cooked at Babbo and Salumeria Rosi, seems to have finally nailed it.
Rabinovich’s trick was to devise a dough that cooks as quickly as traditional fresh pasta, which boils in as little as two minutes, without sacrificing the profoundly satisfying, sturdier texture of dried pasta, which can take ten minutes or more. He spent six months doctoring the recipe, doing away with egg yolk, which is key to most fresh pasta, and experimenting with ratios of durum-wheat flour to water.
During several meals at Forma, I marvelled not only at how near to instantly my pasta was served but also at how it redefined my understanding of al dente. A chef friend likened Rabinovich’s pasta to Asian noodles: spaghetti, slick with a bright, not too sweet pomodoro made with San Marzano tomatoes and fresh basil, was not just firm but almost buoyant, like Japanese udon. It veered toward a chewy springiness known in Taiwan as “Q,” exemplified by tapioca pearls.
Unlike some of its recent predecessors, including the short-lived Pasta Flyer, Forma does not feel born of a capitalist obsession with efficiency. It is not, by any means, the Chipotle of pasta, though it may be a scalable business model. You order and pay at the counter, take a number, and seat yourself, but a busser delivers your food on real plates, and your wine in real glasses. The sidewalk tables are covered with checkered cloth, and the cozy interior evokes a trattoria, with whitewashed brick walls and tin ceilings.
That Forma is fast and casual, not to mention affordable, makes it feel refreshingly unpretentious. (It’s also well suited to a pandemic.) Pastas are twelve dollars, with the exception of specials, which are sixteen and rotate based on the day. (Lasagna is on Sundays, and tends to run out early.) Sides, including grass-fed-beef meatballs and a lovely plate of vegetables served with bagna cauda, are six dollars. A fresh-shaved-truffle supplement would be out of place here. It’s pasta for the people, reclaimed. (Pasta $12-$16.) ♦
