Nobody makes morepastathan Barilla.
For years, its trademark blue boxes sported the slogan, “Italy’s No.
1 brand of pasta,” until a class-actionlawsuitin 2022 accused the company of misleading U.S. consumers.
Courtesy of Barilla Group
A company rep recently sent a few sample boxes toEat This, Not That!
Gregorio grew up in Rome and studied pizza-making in Naples.
The pasta at his restaurant is homemade.
Pastifico Gentile brand bucatini (top) vs. Barilla Al Bronzo bucatini (bottom)Chris Shott
As someone well-versed in Italian cuisine, he is naturally skeptical of cooking noodles out of a box.
The chef whipped up a classic bucatini all’Amatriciana using both brands.
Here’s how they stack up.
Barilla Al Bronzo bucatini all’Amatriciana, prepared by New York chef Manuel GregarioChris Shott
This is a result of the Teflon molds used in modern commercial pasta production.
The Al Bronzo bucatini, meanwhile, has a duller look and feels a bit like sand paper.
In that way, Barilla’s new pasta lives up to its billing, right out of the box.
When you compare it to the Gentile bronze-cut bucatini, however, you notice some other differences.
The Gentile bucatini has an even rougher texture and an irregular shape.
Chef Gregorio suggests it’s probably hand made, whereas the straighter Al Bronzo noodle looks machine made.
As the Al Bronzo bucatini boils, Gregorio notices a surprising amount of what he callsamidoin the water.
That’s Italian for starch.
“When the pasta is good, it leaves a lot of that,” he says.
“Regular Barilla is not like this.”
He also notices that some of the pasta is breaking while cooking, which is not so good.
“It’s really, really delicate.
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With the Gentile brand, theamidois even more noticeable.
So too is the size of the noodle.
“It’s thicker and it has even more starch,” Gregorio says.
“When you have a lot of starch, you know it’s high quality.”
“There is no sauce on the sides,” he notes.
“I put on a lot of sauce, too.”
In this regard, it performs equally as well as the more expensive Gentile brand.
That’s sort of impossible with the Barilla variety.
you could probably guess which one the Italian chef prefers to drive.
“For home,” Gregorio says, “it’s amazing.”
