PastaBar makes fresh pasta in McHenry from organic, locally sourced ingredients

Growing up, Sundays for Mario Scordato meant gravy on the stove for hours, fresh pasta made by his mother and grandmother, and the entire family gathering around the table for dinner.

His wife, Stephanie Scordato, grew up on a farm but had a different relationship with food. “I grew up with ‘food is fuel’ in comparison to ‘food is life.’ They are two totally different things,” she said.

That aesthetic that food is about family and community was part of the reason the Woodstock couple decided to buy PastaBar Woodstock from a family member who started the business in 2021 and make it their own.

If I can’t grow it myself it is not coming in these doors.”

—  Stephanie Scordato, co-owner of PastaBar Woodstock

Now, the couple is making fresh pasta at their McHenry shop and selling it at farmers markets while working on a direct-to-consumers model and getting it into McHenry County speciality groceries and restaurants, as well.

They decided to buy out the family member when he was deciding whether or not to step away from PastaBar as a business, Mario said.

“We had always loved the product and didn’t want to see it go away from the markets. We have a great farmers market following and a solid customer base.”

He has 20 years in the food business, attending culinary school in his late 20s after first getting a degree in landscape design. He said his love of cooking came from his English-Irish mother, who learned how to make Italian food after marrying into an Italian family.

According to family lore, Mario has been cooking since he was a toddler, Stephanie said. “His grandmother found him scrambling an egg on the counter. ... and he has not stopped since.”

The pasta they are making isn’t just the spaghetti and linguini found in any grocery store pasta aisle. They are making campanelle, radiatore and gemelli from water, real semolina imported from Italy and organic durum from central Illinois.

“If I can’t grow it myself it is not coming in these doors,” Stephanie said.

The biggest difference between the shaped pasta and “sheet” pasta is the addition of eggs. Flat pasta, such as lasagna sheets and linguini, needs the fats from the eggs, Mario said.

The shaped pasta, as it comes out of the Italian-built pasta die, has a rougher texture. It is the texture, along with the shape, that helps sauces cling to it after cooking.

“Pasta with deep grooves is really great with a smoother, thinner sauce,” Mario said.

What shapes they sell, including at The Dole in Crystal Lake and the McHenry market at Veteran’s Park, changes each week.

They also are making sauces from organic tomatoes produced in California. Their sauces are not jarred or canned, but sold frozen in deli containers.

“We have fresh and frozen to maintain the color without any preservatives,” Mario said.

The sauces also change from week to week, except for the “Sunday Sauce.” That is patterned after the “Sunday Gravy” Mario’s grandmother made for the family, but renamed for consumers confused by calling it gravy instead of sauce, Stephanie said.

They have ran the business only since May 1, and still are working on where they can grow to next. Their plans are to have a monthly direct-to-consumer subscription service, with each pasta related to a region of Italy.

Wholesale sales to area restaurants and more dried pasta on store shelves could come after that.

Their busy season is during the summer and the market season, but all winter long they have been making pasta, drying it and getting it ready to package and sell. Their fresh pasta, also sold at the markets, needs to be cooked or frozen within a few days of purchase.

“Our neighbors love Tuesdays,” Mario said. That is the day they will give away some of the fresh pasta that did not sell over the weekend.

Both Scordatos still work day jobs – Mario running his personal chef business, Home School of Cooking, and Stephanie for an Illinois beer distributor. They don’t see “becoming millionaires” from PastaBar, but love to share the pasta with their fan base, Stephanie added.

“We want to do this to show how really good food can taste, without being in a restaurant,” she said.