Get your Pasto fix seven day a week

By STU CLAMPITT
news@readthereporter.com

Along with the new year, some new things are coming to this newspaper’s favorite Italian restaurant, Pasto Italiano, 3150 E. State Road 32, Westfield.

Just over three months ago, Mike and Rich Bartalone bought the restaurant, and everything has been so consistently good that many patrons didn’t even know it was under new ownership.

Starting New Year’s Eve, Pasto Italiano will be open seven days a week: 4 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 4 to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. According to both Bartalones, half-price bottles of wine on Wednesdays are here to stay and they will continue to offer live music every Wednesday and Friday.

Mike Bartalone had been working at Pasto Italiano under the leadership of original owners Kent and Patsy for approximately two-and-a-half years before he and his father purchased the restaurant.

“It’s always been a dream,” Mike told The Reporter. “Starting from a dishwasher [at a different restaurant], then cooking, and just working my way up. I love the industry.”

In a fine example of the American Dream, Mike originally walked into Pasto Italiano as a customer.

“Between Mike, our general manager, Tom, and his wife Shaylee, they’ve got 45 years in the business,” Rich said. “I’m just the gopher and the financer. I’m not in the restaurant business, they are. I have complete confidence that they’re going to do a wonderful job.”

If the often-crowded dining room and a few recent instances of a groups buying the whole night for private parties are any indication, they are clearly already doing a wonderful job.

When the new year arrives, there will be some menu changes, but the Bartalones assure us those changes will be in small steps and always after existing customers have embraced the changes.

“I’m not the restaurant guy so I don’t usually stick my nose in it,” Rich said. “We cooked for years and years and years and years. I would love to see other dishes on the menu, but you’ve got to see if that’s going to sell and test it out on specials.”

Coming very soon they will add a soup to the menu: pasta e fagioli, which they have served to the staff and gotten rave reviews.

“I have my own sauce recipe that I make,” Rich said. “I make the sauces. My wife makes the cheeses. She makes a wonderful lasagna, ravioli, and manicotti. I make the sauces.”

Rich and his wife currently live in Florida until they find a home to purchase in either Westfield or Noblesville. Thus, Mike is going to have to get some of Pasto’s new recipes from his mom before she and his dad fly south for the rest of winter.

Both Bartalones were very clear that menu changes will be in small steps and only after new dishes have been offered as specials to be certain customers approve. The Reporter suggests one of those should be called Mike’s Mom’s Manicotti, but we acknowledge that newspaper folk are better with headlines than menus.

You can visit Pasto Italiano’s website at pastoitalianowestfield.com. Call (317) 804-2051 for reservations and email PastoItalianoWestfield@gmail.com to inquire about catering options.