Gemma Foods is Chicago’s next pasta juggernaut
Former Formento’s chef Tony Quartaro’s fresh handmade and extruded shapes aren’t just for his neighbors anymore.
Sign up for our newsletters Subscribe Clockwise from left: Canestri alla vodka, cappelletti with lamb pancetta and fava cream, sorpresine with burro e oro and mozzarella di Bufala Jeff Marini for Chicago Reader Tony Quartaro has an impeccable pasta pedigree going all the way back to all-day suppers at his Grandma Joyce’s house in upstate New York, where he learned to shape gnocchi for the Sunday gravy. “She showed me the difference between sinkers and swimmers, as she called them,” says the 37-year-old chef behind the Beverly-born fresh pasta delivery start-up Gemma Foods. “And how you can make something transcendent from something as simple as potatoes.”