I Asked a Pasta Connoisseur What Kind of Pasta Bowl He Uses, and His Answer Was Not What I Expected

A bowl of pasta sounds like a simple thing, but the more you think about it, the more complex it becomes. Questions arise, like: What kind of pasta are you eating? How much sauce is involved? Are there components that could easily sink to the bottom of the bowl? Are you using a fork or a spoon? 

At the end of the day, finding that one pasta bowl to rule them all simply isn’t as easy as it sounds. And while it would be amazing to have the serveware arsenal of a renowned Italian restaurant, most of us simply don’t have the space (let alone the moolah) to make it happen. Luckily, there are pros who spend most of their waking hours thinking about such issues.  

Wondering if there is, in fact, an ideal pasta bowl, I talked to Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkful podcast, inventor of the cascatelli pasta shape, and author of the new cookbook Anything’s Pastable. On Pashman’s James Beard Award-winning podcast and in his book, he thinks deeply through all things pasta, and definitely had a lot to say about pasta bowls. 

First, he points out that he prefers wider, lower bowls to ones with higher sides. “This is mostly because I want to take a comprehensive survey of available bites, so I need to see most of the dish spread out before me,” he says. “But also, with a narrower bowl with higher sides, you end up with some pasta sitting at the bottom, submerged in lots of sauce, and often trapped inside its own heat.” Pashman explains that without enough space for heat to leave the bowl, additional exposure to higher temperatures means that pasta can become too soft.

Beyond the science, he’s just a fan of the aesthetic. “I think pasta in a wider, lower bowl just looks more bountiful, and if you’re sprinkling parsley or basil or pangrattato [seasoned toasted bread crumbs] on top, it’ll look nice with a bigger surface,” Pashman says. 

As a longtime connoisseur, he’s eaten pasta out of bowls all over the world. But what does he use at home? Well, in a major twist, they’re technically soup bowls. “My wife and I registered for Villeroy and Boch soup bowls when we got married. They’re wide and shallow and look like pasta bowls to me — and we eat 99% of our pasta from those bowls at the dinner table,” he says. “We’ve been married for 17 years, so that’s how long we’ve been eating pasta from them!” The specific line of bowls Pashman uses was discontinued in 2006, but the Manoir line appears to be a successor.

Villeroy & Boch Manoir Soup

Ultimately, it’s about the wide lip for him: “One of the other big advantages of a soup bowl like this is that it has a wide lip that gives you a clean area to twirl long pasta on without inadvertently gathering up more pasta than can fit in your mouth.” In any case, this brings up some deeper, more existential questions about dishware — like, what even is a pasta bowl, man? — but we’re going to trust Pashman here.

Just to confirm the bowl’s general supremacy for pasta, we asked Pashman whether another vessel, like a plate, could ever be preferable. “To me a flat plate is always suboptimal, and it can be catastrophic with more brothy or oily sauces,” he says. “I don’t think a plate is ever preferable to a bowl.” There you have it — whether you’re looking for the perfect pasta bowl or are on the fence about whether you even need one, you should look no further than Villeroy & Boch.

Shop More Pasta Gear at Amazon

Hiware Spider Strainer

OXO Good Grips Spaghetti Server

Cuisinart 4-Piece Cookware Set

Bialetti Oval Pasta Pot

At the time of publishing, the price was $45.