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25 amazing pasta dishes from food service chefs who are envisioning the shape of pasta to come

A crash course in pasta’s many shapes, new sauces. Plus, get new recipes.

Tara Fitzpatrick, Senior Editor

April 19, 2021

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As food service chefs experiment with every pasta shape from agnolotti to ziti, plus unexpected new sauces to match, the results are deliciously different. When jumping down the pasta-shape rabbit hole, culinarians will find lots of fascinating facts.

For example, penne, which translates to “quill pen,” is so popular because it holds sauces well and is durable under intense foodservice conditions. Farfalle means “butterfly” in Italian, and the pinch in the middle of the “bow tie” gives it extra firmness in the center and it’s perfect for pasta salads (source: Barilla Foodservice’s Pasta Encyclopedia).

“I like penne because it goes well with chunky tomatoes, vegetables and other mix-ins,” says CulinArt Executive Chef Kevin Kenny, East Side Dining at Stony Brook University, where the dining team has lots of fun with pasta, in dishes like spaghetti carbonara with peas, mushrooms, Parmesan cream and turkey bacon with the traditional egg swirled in. Meanwhile on the west side of the Stony Brook campus, Stony Brook’s CulinArt Executive Chef Rob Loria has a penchant for gnocchi, pasta’s cousin that’s technically a dumpling. “It has a fun, non-traditional shape and texture with a potato base and gives us the opportunity to the get the flavor out,” he says, combining gnocchi with crumbled Beyond Meat for a meatless Bolognese with herbed ricotta.

Related:8 pasta salads for a sublime summer

Check out these and many more pasta dishes that make the most of the shapes, sauces and creative add-ins, all together.

Contact Tara at [email protected]

Follow her on Twitter @Tara_Fitzie

About the Author

Tara Fitzpatrick

Senior Editor, Informa Restaurant & Food Group

Tara Fitzpatrick is Food Management’s senior editor and a contributor to Restaurant Hospitality and Nation’s Restaurant News, creating editorial content for digital, print and events. Tara holds a bachelor of science degree from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kent State University. Before joining Food Management in 2008, Tara was associate editor at National Association of College Stores in Oberlin, Ohio. Prior to that, Tara worked as a newspaper reporter in her hometown of Lorain, Ohio, where she lives now. Tara is a fan of food history, legends, lore, ghost stories, urban farming and old cookbooks. 

Tara Fitzpatrick’s areas of expertise include the onsite foodservice industry (K-12 schools, colleges and universities, healthcare and B&I), menu trends, sustainability in foodservice, senior dining, farm-to-table and innovation.

Tara Fitzpatrick is a frequent webinar and podcast host and has served on the board of directors for IFEC (International Food Editors Consortium).

Tara Fitzpatrick’s experience:

Senior Editor, Food Management (Feb 2008-present)

Associate Editor, National Association of College Stores (2005-2008)

Reporter, The Morning Journal (2002-2005)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-fitzpatrick-4a08451/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tara_Fitzie

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/tarafitzie/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tara.y.fitzpatrick

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