A new fast-causal restaurant in Boston that specializes in making homemade pasta is expected to serve food that tastes like it came straight out of a European kitchen.
“We’re raised with parents who ran restaurants and they always had the mentality that if it’s not good enough to bring home to your family, it’s not good enough for your customers,” Eva Axiotis, who co-owns BE Pasta Bar with her husband, Billy Axiotis, told MassLive.
“I think that was really important to us that if we’re going to open something, we’re going to open something that we’re proud to serve and something that we know is good high-quality food,” Axiotis continued.
Set to open this week, BE Pasta Bar allows guests to build their own pasta cups made with ingredients and equipment imported from Greece and Italy.
Guests start by choosing from one of four pastas — Campanelli, Fusilli, Rigatoni, and Spaghetti — and then a sauce like tomato, Pesto, Alfredo or garlic cream.
From there, guests can pick their toppings before heading out with their cup of pasta. BE Pasta Bar will feature a special sauce on a rotating basis as well, Axiotis said.
Most of the ingredients are sourced from Europe with olive oil from Axiotis’ family farm in Corinth, Greece and tomato sauce from Italy.
Some other ingredients, including cold cuts, are locally sourced. Meanwhile all the pasta will be made from scratch daily and with machines imported from Italy, Axiotis said.
“Producing high quality food is definitely the center of what we wanted to do here. And bringing this concept to Boston, we really wanted to do it because we wanted to focus on high quality food on the go,” she said.
The restaurant is the first joint venture between Eva and Billy, who both grew up in the restaurant industry.
Eva helped with her family’s pizza business while growing up in New Hampshire. Billy used to work in, and now runs, his family’s pizza restaurant in Boston.
Both Eva and Billy come from Greek families, which Eva said inspired the couple to open a restaurant. However the concept for BE Pasta Bar came during the couple’s trip to Greece and Italy after they got married in 2022.
“We were always walking around and touring and looking at things, and one of the things that we loved was this on-the-go pasta idea because people were getting such great quality food and just walking around with it,” Axiotis said. “We just kept looking at each other and saying, ‘I wish Boston had more of these options, where you’re getting something that’s great quality and fresh, but you can take it quickly with you.”
With this in mind, the couple wanted the shop to be “in a high foot traffic area” that was close to students and working professionals, Axiotis said.
They eventually decided on a space at 1026 Commonwealth Ave., which is on the Boston/Brookline line, close to the Agganis Arena, and part of Boston University’s campus.
With the shop set to open, the couple is excited to give people a little taste of their heritage.
“We feel really confident with the recipes we have now and thankfully we have a really great prep team and staff trained and ready to go for opening day,” Axiotis said.
BE Pasta Bar will have a soft opening during the first week of April. Updates on the restaurant can be found by following BE Pasta Bar on Instagram.
