Paccheri alla Vittorio
Paccheri in a silky tomato-butter sauce, made famous by the three-Michelin-star Da Vittorio in Bergamo. The tomatoes are cooked, blended, and sieved to velvet, then mounted with cold butter and Parmigiano.
Paccheri alla Vittorio is the pasta of the Cerea family's Da Vittorio in Brusaporto, near Bergamo, three Michelin stars and one of the most celebrated tables in Italy. The dish takes its name from the restaurant, not the man: a house signature built on the simplest idea executed flawlessly. Three types of tomato are cooked with garlic and basil, blended smooth, pressed through a sieve, and mounted with butter until the sauce has the gloss of a restaurant pass.
Only a few ingredients
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
A thin layer, medium heat. Enough to soften the garlic.
Garlic
Whole or lightly crushed. Golden, not brown, pull them out once they are fragrant.
San Marzano Tomatoes
Crushed by hand, a mix of canned plum and halved cherry tomatoes gives the depth the restaurant version is known for. Let them cook down for twenty minutes or so, then blend smooth and press through a sieve.
sievedBasilico Genovese DOP
A few leaves in with the tomatoes, then more torn in at the end. The basil flavours the sauce, not the plate.
Butter
Cold, in pieces, off the heat. Whisk it in until the sauce turns glossy and silky. This is the finish that makes it a Da Vittorio dish.
Parmigiano Reggiano
Grated at the table. A generous finish.
Silky, not chunky.
Paccheri alla Vittorio is a velvety sauce. The tomatoes are blended and pushed through a sieve before the butter is mounted in. That is what separates it from a rustic ragù. If the sauce has texture, you have made a different dish. Cold butter, off the heat, is what gives the final gloss.
Paccheri
The large ridged tubes are the dish, the sauce pools inside them.
Penne
A practical substitute with the same logic.
Ready to cook?
These sources we trust. Each one makes it correctly.
Other sauces from the same region
Pizzoccheri
The mountain dish of Valtellina. Buckwheat ribbons, potatoes, and savoy cabbage boiled in one pot, layered with Casera cheese, and drowned in hot garlic butter. Gooey, nutty, and built for a cold valley evening.
Scarpinocc di Parre
A meatless stuffed pasta from Parre, in the Val Seriana above Bergamo, shaped like the cloth shoes the village shepherds wore. A spiced cheese-and-breadcrumb filling, dressed the only way it should be: butter and sage.
Maltagliati al Mascarpone
Irregular diamond scraps of pasta in a velvety mascarpone-and-egg sauce. A Lombard dish from the Po Valley, built from nothing wasted: five minutes, five ingredients, and a sauce that coats like nothing else.