Pasta News

Celeb Dallas chef invents unique Italian restaurant with authentic pasta

Pasta from Miss Pasta.

Miss Pasta

An acclaimed chef is debuting a new Italian restaurant with a truly original approach. Called Miss Pasta, it's from chef Giuliano Matarese and his wife Tiziana Cosentino, and will open in the Shire complex at 3613 Shire Blvd. #100 in Richardson.

UPDATE 11/28/2023: Miss Pasta is now open.

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A native of Naples, Matarese worked on the East Coast at restaurants such as Charlie Palmer's Aureole in New York before coming to Dallas, and has also appeared on cooking shows such as Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay.

He earned local notice as a partner in Mille Lire, the Italian restaurant in the Centrum building in Oak Lawn that he opened with his brother-in-law Brian Ellard in 2017; it closed during COVID in 2020.

Matarese comes from a restaurant family: His cousin Enzo owns a Neapolitan Pizzeria called La Notizia, found in the Michelin Guide, and his great grandmother and grandmother owned restaurants in Naples.

With Miss Pasta, Matarese and Cosentino want to offer the handmade pasta that is a family tradition but in a semi-fast-casual setting and at an approachable price.

"All my life, I've worked in fine dining, but I want to make an incredible pasta experience available to everyone," he says. "This will be a neighborhood Italian kitchen specializing in fresh homemade pasta. But you'll order at the counter and when your food is ready, we will deliver it to the table."

He values the idea not only of a more affordable meal but also one in which the experience is more immediate, inspired by the osterias common in Rome.

"It's an opportunity to have authentic Italian food and experience but in a casual way," he says.

The menu will incorporate family recipes from Matarese's grandmother's restaurants that he had as a child, as well as dishes from different regions of Italy: cacio e pepe, carbonara, Bolognese, gnocchi, lasagna — "but everything made fresh," he says. "You'll be able to see all the pasta, freshly made, displayed behind a window. Once you order, we'll drop it in the water and then serve it with authentic Italian sauces."

Miss Pasta chef Giuliano Matarese has his eye on pasta.Courtesy photo

Ravioli, gnocchi, spaghetti — everything will be made daily. "Anyone who has spent time in Italy knows how Italian food has to be, and we are focused on that authenticity," he says.

Another major component at Miss Pasta will be their to-go option. "Takeout will be a significant part of the operation," Matarese says.

They'll partner with third-party delivery companies such as DoorDash, so that you can get all of their pasta delivered, along with a bottle of wine, if you so desire.

They've formed an alliance with a small winery in Tuscany, whose wines they will feature.

"Villa Svetoni is a beautiful vineyard in Tuscany, they make montepulciano, sangiovese, rose, all from the same area, we spend time between here and there, and want to to show where we come from," he says.

A friend recommended the space at the Shire, and the couple liked its central location and proximity to businesses and residential. Their goal is to open other Miss Pastas down the road.

They're still in construction and hope to be open in mid-October. The space will be clean but warm, with black & white photos but also greenery and flowers.

"The main focus will be the open space where diners can see the process before their eyes," Matarese says. "To see the kitchen take the fresh pasta on display, cook it, make the sauce, see the action and the freshness of the ingredients."

"We love the Dallas-Fort Worth dining scene and I don't feel like there's anything quite like this," he says. "A nice dish of pasta with an authentic flavor served this way. I think about sitting down at home with my mom and a bowl of pasta, the way we were raised — I want to bring that same emotional sensation to Dallas-Fort Worth."

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Noodle News

YouTube critic Mike Chen ranks his favorite noodles in Dallas

Pho Pasteur

YouTube food critic Mike Chen, who travels the world spotlighting mostly Asian restaurants for his Strictly Dumpling YouTube channel, recently dropped into Dallas to rank his favorite noodles in town.

Titled "24 Hours Eating The Best NOODLES + DUMPLINGS Around DFW," the video follows Chen as he visits five restaurants, ordering noodles and dumplings at his favorite places as well as new discoveries.

The visit marked a return to DFW for Chen, who briefly resided in North Texas in 2021 and who has previously posted videos covering ramen, Vietnamese food, sushi, and barbecue.

Here's where he ate:

Chef Sun's Noodle and Dumpling
The video starts out with him noting that "there's a lot of new noodle places around the Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Frisco area," before entering Chef Sun's Noodle and Dumpling, a Chinese Halal restaurant that makes its own noodles, with locations in Plano and McKinney (which CultureMap covered in May — do you think he saw our story?!).

He raves over the extensive menu, featuring not only noodles but "a bunch of dumplings" and many other options like walnut shrimp and mapo tofu.

He also raves over the price. "Wow — $10 for Biangbiang noodles" [a dish featuring flat noodles with minced garlic, green onion, chili powder] — "only in Texas," he says.

He orders the Big Plate chicken, like a chicken stew with flat noodles, chunks of soft potato, carrots, yellow onion, green onion, bell pepper, and cilantro; as well as a variety of dumplings, including beef, pork, chicken & corn, veggie, and soup dumplings, heaping praise on their light chewy wrapper.

"My philosophy is always, eat the worst first and save the best for last, so let's start with the veggie dumplings," he said.

Pho Pasteur
On Day 2, he goes to Pho Pasteur, a longtime highly acclaimed family-owned chain with locations in Richardson, Arlington, and Carrollton, the location he visits.

"I've been thinking about this place for a long long time," he says. "I remember when I was living here, this was one of my favorites."

He orders pho with fatty brisket — "because here in Texas, whenever you see brisket, you get the brisket," he says.

After taking a sip of the broth, he proclaims, "This is the stuff — I've always said that this place has one of the best, if not THE best broth in America, with such a concentrated beefy flavor, and it's got so much depth."

"This might be one of my most-missed food items after I left Dallas," he says.

z.TAO Marketplace
His next destination is the z.TAO Marketplace, an Asian grocery store and food court in Plano which oddly has not updated its social media presence since 2020. He oohs and aahs over the supermarket's bounty including the many different Asian flavors of Pepsi, Coca Cola, and Fanta, then orders a bowl of hulatang, a traditional thick Northern Chinese soup, hand-pulled dan dan noodles, and a sandwich with chopped pork.

Moriya Shokudo Ramen & Curry
He also visits Moriya Shokudo, which started out in a food court in Koreatown before opening a stand-alone restaurant in Richardson in 2024, and which has won local awards for its ramen and curry.

He orders the garlic ramen and marvels at its garlicky-ness, with a black garlic-flavored tonkotsu broth along with roasted whole garlic cloves.

"This is a really intensely garlicky bowl — to call it intense would be an understatement," he says. "I would say this is a must-try."

Pho Big Bowl
His last place is Pho Big Bowl, a Vietnamese restaurant which started out in Watauga before opening a location in Carrollton in 2022.

He likes the lightness and yet potent beefy flavor of the broth. "I feel like when I'm here in Texas, I don't add nearly as much sriracha as I would at places in New York or Seattle," he says.

"I am really jealous of all the good pho places you have here in the Dallas area," he says. "I feel like, of all the cities in Texas, this area has the best pho, hands down."

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