Photograph by Paul Myers
Pasteria owner Donna DeCanti waits on customers Mark and Carol Sorich.
Homemade Italian pastas are a Pasteria trademark
By Suzanne Cristallo
Take some hand-made pasta, add the heat of customer demand, sprinkle in a little romance and serve with some adept and loyal student employees. What you have is The Pasteria in Los Gatos--a very popular restaurant.
Donna DeCanti opened the corner pasta shop on East Main Street in December 1995. Her intent was to market uncooked, over-the-counter pasta. But customers immediately began pressuring her to cook the pasta for them. The added responsibility brought longtime friend and building contractor, Paul Novi, to her aid. He had been remodeling the place. Now he would cook.
By March, Novi became a partner. By August, the Pasteria was a full-blown restaurant, employing eager students from Los Gatos High School just down the street.
Last month, after nearly six years of seven-day-a-week crowds who wait cheerfully for a table in the 32-seat restaurant, Donna and Paul took a few days off to get married.
DeCanti will use her maiden name for a while. "The minute something is changed, people worry there is new management," she smiles. And the crowds press on.
"Business is very busy, sometimes so busy you don't know if you can do it," she reflects, noting that their staff of nine has thinned now that school has started. But the kids come back. "One of our Los Gatos High graduates, Melanie Benson, returns on weekends from college in San Luis Obispo to work with us," DeCanti relates with a touch of pride. "She wants to own her own restaurant--maybe with John." John Vartamian, 19, is another LGHS grad and the Pasteria's assistant chef. He is studying business at West Valley College with the intent of some day owning a sports bar/restaurant.
"We adore our students and have had such good luck with them," DeCanti states.
The happy working atmosphere is tangible, but customers thrive on the food. The menu DeCanti and Novi designed offers several star items. The butternut squash agnolotti ("priest's cap")--a crescent-shaped pasta--is served in a creamy tomato sauce for $8.95. "Folks seem almost addicted to it," DeCanti notes.
The "prima donna" is fettuccini pasta with prawns, pancetta, spinach, olive oil and garlic topped with fresh Mozzarella for $12.95 "It's named for me, because I eat it all the time," she chuckles.
The pink vodka mostaccioli ("mustaches")--hollow, tubular pasta cut diagonally--is served in a creamy tomato sauce "with a little vodka for a kick" and garnished with sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts and feta cheese for $8.95.
"We make all of our own pastas, sauces and dressings," DeCanti notes. "While we still have take-out, it's scaled down."
DeCanti, 39, is a San Franciscan who started her business career as a hair stylist. She and her son, Devon, 9, a student at Van Meter School, are longtime residents of Los Gatos. Novi, 48, is a transplanted Pennsylvanian whose Italian grandparents came from Padua. Romance blossomed as the partners shared the business and a myriad of cooking classes. Their love of food must be contagious, as young Devon is a budding epicure. He floored his parents recently when a steak and fries dinner at Napa Valley's Bouchon restaurant so impressed him that he went back to the kitchen to tell the chef. "We didn't even get to meet the chef," DeCanti relates with some envy.
The Pasteria, 49 E. Main St., Los Gatos. Open for dinner Sun.-Thu. 5-9:30 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 5-10 p.m. Call for reservations: 408.399.3477.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
