This Pasta Granny Relishes the Spotlight

as the world continues down its current path of crazy, is tucking into a plate of pasta followed by another plate of pasta and calling it dinner the coping mechanism of the future? You’d think so, judging by the crowd at Nonna Dora’s

Pasta Bar (606 Second Ave., nr. 33rd St.). The modus operandi of these pastivores is to load up on carbs as if they had an important marathon to run in the morning. And who can blame them considering the woman behind the pasta is certified pasta granny Dora Marzovilla?

For 27 years at her son Nicola’s restaurant, I Trulli, Dora rolled and shaped pasta with the lightning speed of a three-card-monte man, earning her the nickname the Human Pasta Machine. But it’s only since her 2019 appearance in a Pasta Grannies YouTube video that she’s become an internet star. During the pandemic, she pivoted to frozen pasta kits, and when Nicola shuttered the restaurant to focus on his Tuscan wine estate, she wasn’t having it. So he found a space nearby and made her the main attraction, expanding the pasta roster to 20 selections supplemented by a killer negroni menu, antipasti (but no secondi), and a great Italian wine list. Then he built a glass-walled exhibition kitchen where Nonna, who just celebrated her 86th birthday, could do her stuff.

Having gobbled our way through a good chunk of the menu, we can happily direct you to the mini-calzones called panzerotti, the springy fava e cicoria purée, and especially Dora’s signatures—perfectly textured cavatelli with broccoli rabe and thick, chewy-tender orecchiette with rabbit ragù. Nonna Dora’s is also the only place (besides i Trulli) where we’ve ever seen ceci e tria, a regional oddity that combines fresh and fried squares of thin pasta sheets in an elemental sauce of chickpeas and tomato. As for Dora’s candy-striped casoncelli—beet-filled ravioli garnished with lemon zest and poppy seeds—do as the pastivores do and have a plate for dessert.