Authentic Italian fare, homemade pasta are the specialties of this new Wichita business
She grew up in an Italian family, which meant that pasta was made at home, not bought dried at the grocery store.
Now, Kristina Grappo is trying to teach Wichitans about the joys of fresh pasta — and to educate them about authentic Italian cuisine — with a new business that has just gotten a higher profile.
Grappo is the owner of Viola’s Pantry, a business she started last year after the COVID-19 pandemic stunted her marketing consulting business. She’d moved to Wichita from Austin about a year earlier with her husband, who’s in the Air Force, and she decided to use what she’d learned during a career in marketing to go into business for herself. She named her venture after her grandmother, Viola.
Grappo, who is among many local food producers who rents commercial kitchen space at Reverie Coffee Roasters, spent her first year selling her homemade pastas, pesto, sauces and breads to individual clients who discovered her online. But recently, she’s gotten a more public profile.
She set up a booth last weekend at the Shop & Grub market, which happens the third Sunday of every month in Naftzger Park, Douglas and St. Francis, and there, she sold prepared pasta dishes, including two homemade pasta salads and family-sized servings of spaghetti and meatballs and macaroni and cheese.
Saturday will be her first time at the Old Town Farm & Art Market, which happens from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday mornings at 835 E. First St. Grappo, who plans to set up three Saturdays a month at the market through the end of the season, will be selling her fresh-made pastas by the pound and will have homemade sauces as well. People who shop her booth will have everything they need to go home and prepare an Italian meal, including cooking instructions.
“One of the things that I really want to try to do is educate people more about Italian cuisine and some of the different styles of cooking,” she said.
On Saturday, she’ll be selling spaghetti and fettuccine as well as some pastas made with different colors and patterns. She’ll also have her classic tomato sauce, made using her grandmother’s recipe, as well as a pesto and a brown butter lavender sauce.
Grappo’s pastas aren’t dried — rather they’re soft and pliable and ready to cook. She brings them frozen to the market, so people can take them home and use them at their leisure.
She makes her noodles using eggs, which she sources at local farms, and that gives the pasta a nice “bite,” she said.
“It’s a more authentic product,” she said. “It’s chewier, and you get more of a bite in the pasta. Really good pasta, you want it to be soft but still feel like you’re biting into something.”
Grappo has many other types of pasta in her repertoire and also makes farfalle, orecchiette and gnocchi as well as stuffed pastas like ravioli and tortellini. Her regular pastas go for about $10 a pound, and stuffed pasta like ravioli is sold by the individual piece.
In addition to pasta by the pound, on Saturday, people will also be able to pick up her family-sized meals, which go for about $20.
She hopes to eventually start selling her pasta wholesale, and she also plans to add dried pasta to her inventory. Her goal is to start an ecommerce Italian market where people all over the world can buy her fresh pasta and have it shipped to them.
People who want to try Grappo’s Italian food will have a few other chances as well. On July 31, she’ll be the featured chef at a pop-up dinner at The Workroom, 150 N. Cleveland. She’s also in talks with Mark Arts, 1307 N. Rock Road, about starting pasta making classes there.
To find out more information about Viola’s Pantry and where Grappo will be setting up from week-to-week, follow the business’s Instagram page.
This story was originally published July 21, 2021 at 9:34 AM.
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