Words by Andrea Gemmet
Almost every Friday, you’ll find Trish Battaglia cooking up something delicious for the staff lunch at Saporito Pasta in Redwood City. In good Italian fashion, it’s known as the “mangia meal,” and Trish is always changing the menu to whatever the factory’s small crew is craving. “I do salmon or tri-tip, sometimes burgers, a lot of seafood,” Trish says. Perhaps unsurprisingly, pasta is frequently on the menu. “They always want pasta!” she laughs.
Saporito is tucked into an unassuming block of industrial buildings off of busy Veterans Boulevard. Inside a small office space, I find Trish wearing a chef’s coat and bright blue hair net. I suit up and follow her onto the factory floor, a compact space humming with activity, as Saporito’s handful of skillful staffers are hard at work producing hundreds of pounds of pasta. Angel hair emerges from the imported Italian extruder—“Just like Play-doh,” Trish comments—and with the swipe of a blade, handfuls of slender golden strands are freed from the machine, tossed with flour, gathered in a loose twist and gently placed in a clamshell box.
Short, ridged tubes of mostaccioli pop out from another extruder, while nearby, the laminator is producing sheets of pasta that will be cut into linguine, lasagna and pappardelle. Another specialized machine produces nothing but plump, potato-enriched gnocchi. Metal trays fill up with packages of pasta and are rolled past 50-pound bags of flour and into the walk-ins to chill.
At Saporito, there’s a strict order of operations. The first pasta of the day is the traditional stuff, made with just flour and water—“All our Italian clients ask for that,” Trish explains—followed by pasta enriched with eggs and lastly, flavored pastas. On this overcast Thursday, Saporito is making lemon-pepper linguine and saffron pappardelle. Once, they even produced a special order of chocolate linguine. Which raises the question: What would you serve with that? Trish considers it for a moment, then suggests a rich mole sauce.
With a background in catering and a lifelong love of cooking, Trish comes up with many of Saporito’s recipes. Her culinary skills date back to childhood, when she’d perch on the counter while her grandmother, a professional cook, would show her how to dole out ingredients with her hands, no measuring cups needed. Trish remembers getting frustrated and protesting that she couldn’t do it. Her grandma would tell her, “If you have love for what you do, your recipe will always come out.”
In the eight years that Trish, her husband Greg and their business partner Brian Mulcahy have run Saporito, they’ve had to get creative to make the business successful. When corporate campuses like Facebook and Google closed during the lockdown, they shifted from supplying company cafeterias to selling fresh pasta in Peninsula grocery stores like Piazza’s, Sigona’s, Bianchini’s and DeHoff’s. You can also find Saporito’s pastas served at restaurants including Vino Santo in Redwood City, Miramar and It’s Italia in Half Moon Bay, Stamp Bar & Grill in San Carlos as well as Cafe Pro Bono and Local Union in Palo Alto. Chefs will provide the filling for ravioli to Saporito, which sends back perfectly stuffed pasta pillows.
And it’s not all savory stuff. Saporito added a baking division that produces desserts like tiramisu, chocolate ganache cake, lemon curd tarts, raspberry cheesecake and colorful macarons. Their bakers came from French Patisserie, the now-closed wholesale bakery in Pacifica. “Our desserts are not super-sweet, but they’re decadent,” Trish says.
The one thing they can’t do at Saporito is make pastas and sauces with meat fillings—there just isn’t enough space. So in 2023, Trish, Greg and Brian created BPM Fine Foods, a second facility in Redwood City where they make things like meat lasagnas, savory stews and a line of quiches.
Saporito Pasta is truly a family affair. After they went into business, Brian and Greg discovered that they are distant cousins and Brian Jr. is behind the design of Saporito’s label. Trish and Greg’s son Alex recently joined the company and has become the driving force behind Saporito’s vegan products.
Trish says there’s no mistaking freshly made pasta for the dried stuff that comes in a box. “Once you’ve eaten fresh pasta, you never go back,” she says with a smile.
deliciously al dente – saporitofood.com
MAKE IT: SAPORITO'S ITALIAN PASTA SALAD Trish Battaglia prefers chunky rigatoni or mostaccioli in her go-to pasta salad. Use any combination of ripe heirloom tomatoes when they’re in season, or her suggested blend of tomatoes found in grocery stores year-round. Makes eight servings. Ingredients 2 pounds fresh Saporito pasta 1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 teaspoon plus 1 tablespoon kosher salt 4 ounces green onions, chopped 3 tablespoons Italian parsley, chopped 1 teaspoon dried oregano ¼ teaspoon cracked pepper 1-2 cloves garlic, finely chopped 2 ounces fresh basil, cut into chiffonade 2 tablespoons capers (optional) 2.5 pounds tomatoes: Romas, Kumatos, cherry and Constellation 1 bottle of your favorite Italian salad dressing In a large pot, bring four quarts of water to a boil and add a tablespoon of salt. Cook pasta to your liking then drain it in a colander and rinse it with cold water. Drain well and set aside to cool. In a large bowl, add olive oil and salt. Then mix in the green onions, parsley, oregano, cracked pepper, garlic, basil and capers (if using). Cut up the tomatoes into bite-sized chunks and add them to the bowl. Incorporate cooled pasta into the tomato mixture, then slowly add bottled salad dressing to taste, mixing well. Chill for four hours before serving or store in the fridge overnight in an airtight container.