S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 7 8 3 squares start dropping out of a chute onto a broad drying tray dusted with rice flour. In no time, two large drying trays are heaped with ravioli. “This is only enough ravioli for today,” Page says. “I had to learn a lot,” she says. “Since I grew up in Maine, the joke here is that I believed there were only two types of pasta–macaroni and spaghetti.” Don’t overlook Paciarino’s retail fridge case just outside the kitchen. I ask Enrico about the black tagliolini. “Ah, that’s made with squid ink, which I get from Browne Trading. It loves any sauce made with frut- ti di mare.” I purchase a package and make a quick scampi for dinner with fresh to- matoes and lots of garlic from the farmers’ market. Boiling water turns the tagliolini a dark, dramatic green-black, and the tender noodles really do love the shrimp sauce. Do try this at home! ON TO LIGURIA Paolo Laboa, executive chef at Solo Italia- no on Commercial Street, is another native Italian in charge of a Portland restaurant kitchen. Like Milanese chef Enrico Barbie- ro, he too has regional pride and a glorious accent. Laboa’s home town is Genoa. “Genova,” he corrects. “Genovese food has the light hand, very healthy. Today, salt and sugar are put into everything. We don’t do that. My food is real. Everything here is local. Produce and duck eggs come from Stonecipher Farm; other vegetables come from Dandelion Farm.” He shows us his corzetti stamps–“made by a Ligurian stamp-making family who’s carved them for 400 years.” Solo Italiano has the greatest seat- ing capacity of the fresh pasta palaces we visit, hence the greatest nightly need for freshly made pasta in up to a half-dozen shapes. Yet the pasta-making work space is the smallest we’ve seen. What’s more, “The menu changes every day,” says Frank Lehman, who functions as the one-man pasta station. H e stands at a small counter, hand- cutting and piping tortellini at lightning speed. “The trick here is to roll, cut, and seal every one of these be- fore the dough dries out,” says Lehman, whose eyes never stray from his work. He piles the tortellini onto a baking sheet dust- ed with semolina. “These are filled with mozzarella, basil, and marjoram,” says Chef Laboa. “Tonight, we’ll sauce them with puttanesca di tonno– that’s a puttanesca sauce with fresh tuna.” He pulls the fingers of one hand together and gazes heavenward to suggest how di- vine this will be. Next up are the fazzoletti that Solo sauc- es with pesto alla Genovese. Laboa’s pes- to won a 2008 best pesto award in Geno- va, and he has the mortar-and-pestle tro- phy to prove it. “Notice Frank uses only the width of his hand to measure where to cut,” says Laboa as Lehman runs a rolling blade across the sheet of dough along the pinky side of his left hand. Once these rectangles are dispatched to another flour-dusted sheet, he switch- es gears to the orecchiette. “These will get a traditional sauce of sausage and brocco- Chef Paolo Laboa (right) and Frank Lehman prepare tortellini for the night’s service at Solo Italiano.