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Home chefs, get pumped: noodle savant Mike Easton soft opened his Il Corvo Pasta Studio this week in the former home of Pizzeria Gabbiano. Okay home chefs, settle down again: This week is just a bit of a tease lasting through Friday, after which Easton will close again for fine tuning. Look for the grand opening on May 23.
"Putting up a retail shop with fresh pasta, there were a few things we couldn't practice without being open," Easton told Eater of the decision to pop up temporarily. His wife, Victoria, told some diners at Il Corvo about the soft opening, and the company has been posting gorgeous photos to Instagram. Otherwise Easton said it's "pretty chill," with about 10 to 15 customers trickling in per day, "A perfect pace for us to figure out what things need improvement."
For example, the shop has a large pasta display case, and Easton doesn't want to ruin its aesthetics by covering all the pasta in plastic. "So we've dialing in the humidity so the pasta stays moist and looks good in the case," the chef said. He's also waiting on a few last bronze dies for extruding pasta, which should arrive in time for the official reveal.
The new project should look and feel familiar to fans of the late Pizzeria Gabbiano. "I think there's a continuity in design between this space and Corvo, we've always sort of tried to go with a timeless feel," Easton said. "I like places to look like maybe they've been there for 30 years, maybe not, you don't know. That's the design style we've been going for."
The Il Corvo sister store's initial hours are 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday, reflecting what Easton sees as the quiet nature of the area. "Right now it seems like Pioneer Square goes to sleep at 4 p.m. We're a little after 4 and I'm looking out the window and it's a ghost town out there," Easton said yesterday. He's open to increasing the hours, though, should that prove necessary.
