Restaurants

Seaport’s Pasta Beach restaurant reopens with new menu, ambiance

The restaurant is back nearly three years after a fire forced it to close.

By Susannah Sudborough

June 30, 2022

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Nearly three years after being forced to shutter due to a fire, Pasta Beach‘s Rowes Wharf location reopened on June 25 with a reimagined restaurant, an updated menu, and new chefs.

At the helm are executive chef Andrea Congiusta, who has worked in the kitchens of two- and three-Michelin Star restaurants in Italy and was recognized there as a “Top 10 Chef Under-35,” and head chef Massimo Cascone, who has worked as a lead chef in Torino, Italy, for the past 20 years, according to a news release.

“With the mentality of ‘less is more,’ the chefs will artfully produce handmade pastas and proteins using the fewest and simplest ingredients, letting each element shine on its own,” the release said.

Congiusta and Cascone are excited to serve a pizza crust called “pinsa” to hungry Boston diners. Pinsa is a “… blissfully airy, Roman-style pizza crust made with four different flours,” according to the release.

Pasta Beach’s menu features nine pastas, including mouthwatering dishes like cappelletti al parmigiano made with homemade cappelletti, 24-month aged parmigiano reggiano, porcini, and oyster mushrooms, as well as plin di gamberi e pistacchio made with homemade ravioli, shrimp, pistachios, and pescatora sauce.

For antipasti, the restaurant has a range of choices, from tartare di manzo made with beef tartare, dill, cappers, pickles, marinated onions, rosemary olive oil, and a mustard and egg emulsion, to capesante made with scallop carpaccio, fried capers, aromatic breadcrumbs, and Mediterranean sauce.

For secondi, diners have six options:

• Pollo Arrosto – roasted chicken, cacciatore sauce, roasted potatoes
• Salmone – pan fried salmon, bok choi cabbage, tartar sauce
• Tonno – fried breaded tuna, balsamic tomato chutney, burrata
• Filleto – beef tenderloin, potato terrine
• Anatra – roasted duck breast, rhubarb, cherries
• Brasato – slow-roasted beef, Barolo wine, celeriac puree

Pasta Beach’s mixologists will be pouring seasonal cocktails, six beers on draught — three of which are Italian — and a selection of Italian wines.

The space, which is meant to evoke both tranquility and spirit, is enveloped in banana leaf print wallpaper and features three commissioned artworks by Newport-based artist Chris Willey.

The newly renovated restaurant now offers a pasta-making and pinsa station at the entrance, a partially open kitchen, an expanded zinc-topped bar area which serves as the focal point of the restaurant, and expanded indoor and outdoor seating overlooking Boston Harbor.

The restaurant also has a unique lighting design created by Tyler Ropolo, son of the restaurant’s owners, in collaboration with Torino-based lighting artisans ECLISSI, the release said. It features brightly colored chandeliers and light fixtures in hues like tangerine and emerald, sheathed with raffia palm.

The small chain is family-owned and operated. It is lead by Dr. Gianni Ropolo, who hails from Torino, Italy; his wife, Susie, a New England native; and their sons, Eldredge and Tyler. After meeting and sharing their love of Italian food, the Ropolos started Pasta Beach in Newport, R.I., in 2002.

Pasta Beach Rowes Wharf is located at 30 Rowes Wharf, and is open Wednesday through Sunday beginning at 4:30 p.m.

See the full menus below:

PB Menu Boston Main by Susannah Sudborough on Scribd

PB Menu Boston Drinks by Susannah Sudborough on Scribd