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Despite most traditional Italians considering it sacrilegious, penne alla vodka is quickly becoming one of the most in-demand Italian dishes.
Previously popular in suburban Italo-American restaurants during the 80s, the dish is now enjoying a widespread resurgence that is being driven by several factors including nostalgia and social media.
Featuring a tomato and cream base with a splash of vodka, the silky smooth sauce sits somewhere between coral and carrot on the colour wheel. The Guardian’s Rome-based food writer Rachel Roddy describes it as “luxurious and a bit racy”.
Dara Klein, a chef and founder of Tiella Trattoria in London, says the dish “hits lots of comforting notes”, comparing it to a slightly more grownup take on the Italian childhood favourite pasta al pomodoro which is “eaten from day dot”.
From New York to London, you’ll now find penne alla vodka as a beloved fixture on menus spanning budget eateries to fine dining.
At Marks & Spencer, you can buy a ready-meal version of the dish for £4.60, while at Waitrose, the retailer sells tubs of its own take on the sauce for £3.75. A spokesperson for the retailer says sales are up 65% year on year.
Meanwhile, at the London outpost of Carbone, the cult New York cucina with a three-month waiting list for weekend reservations, its kitchen serves up more than 120 orders of the rich, glossy pasta each night.
“There’s an alchemy to the dish,” says its co-founder and chef Mario Carbone. His recipe features chilli flakes and uses fresh rigatoni, instead of penne, because it cooks quicker. “It’s creamy, spicy and chewy,” Carbone says. “It is quite addictive to eat.”
Rather than diners posting a photo of the Carbone’s smart mosaic floors, gleaming leather banquettes or neon signage, a snap of the plated pasta has become a sort of insider humblebrag on social media. “You don’t even need to add the name or location,” notes Carbone. “It’s hugely flattering that something I’ve made has taken on that effect.”
While the dish has been given an Italian name, there are doubts that it is in fact Italian. Some say the dish originated during the 1960s at Fontana Di Trevi in New York. Some claim it was invented around the corner at Orsini in the 70s. Others allege it stemmed from Dante Casari’s restaurant in Bologna, while some peg it to Alla Vecchia Bettola in Florence.
Carbone, who grew up in Queens to parents of Italian descent, says it wasn’t a dish served at home. “My grandparents were born in Italy and that is not a dish you are going to find there. They definitely would have kind of turned their noses up at that idea.” Instead, he first experienced it as a child in a neighbourhood restaurant. When he suggested putting it on the restaurant’s debut menu in 2013, he said the team chuckled. Many doubted that the retro dish would work for a fancy restaurant, but from the opening night it was an instant hit.
By the 80s, vodka pasta had become ubiquitous in the US. It became popular in nightclubs earning the nickname “disco sauce”.
Ian MacAllen, the author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American, isn’t surprised to see it having a comeback almost four decades later. “The world is falling apart right now,” he says. “The warm embrace of this very rich, comforting food is what people are looking for right now.”
For gen Z, penne alla vodka has become their equivalent of the 70s prawn-cocktail dinner party, with recipe and serving suggestions on TikTok amassing hundreds of thousands of views. Some refer to it as “the Gigi Hadid pasta” – a nod to the model who posted her own take on the trend.
Part of the appeal is that it can be made relatively cheaply and quickly, but for the cohort who is largely sober curious, it also offers a way of experimenting with alcohol without actually consuming it.
Tiella Trattoria says the vodka can help “add body to the sauce” as it acts as an emulsifier between the cream and tomatoes. Carbone says it doesn’t add any flavour, describing its use as “more ceremonial than anything”.
MacAllen says many of today’s versions have “been gentrified in some respects”, pointing to New York’s Don Angie that does a lobster alla vodka take.
The author says it reflects a changing attitude towards the idea of authenticity. “In the 90s, it was all about finding original recipes. Nowadays, they are adapted and evolve over time,” MacAllen said.
For some that means even pivoting away from pasta. In worrying news for traditionalists, pizza alla vodka and chicken alla vodka sandwiches are now gaining momentum in the US.
