Like many hospitality workers at the start of the pandemic, Dan Esfahani was let go from his job as a chef – a role he had only recently landed with a big hospitality group. It was also around the same time people began panic buying, emptying shelves of toilet paper, bread and pasta. It was the concurrent timing of these two events that gave Esfahani the idea to start his own pasta-delivery service, Dan’s Pasta.

Dan’s Pasta is not about supplying dried, packet pasta. Rather, all pastas are freshly hand-rolled and cut every morning before they go out for delivery. And, impressively, it’s only $5 per serving. There are 13 different pastas, including spaghetti, pappardelle, fettuccine, and three vegan varieties.

“The whole vision is to bring fresh pasta, like what you would get at some of Sydney’s restaurants that make it fresh every day,” Esfahani tells Broadsheet.

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Esfahani rotates the fillings of his ravioli and tortellini. “Either it’s something simple like a lemon-and-ricotta tortellini or a more traditional route with mortadella, prosciutto and parmesan. It just depends on what I’m feeling and what’s out there.”

There’s also a range of house-made sauces and oils to accompany the pasta; they include tomato, sundried tomato pesto, a creamy carbonara sauce, porcini mushroom sauce, and vegan and non-vegan basil pesto, as well as a garlic and chilli oils. Each jar of sauce is enough to coat two to three servings of pasta; they range in price from $5 to $10. The online store also carries a small selection of Olsson’s salt.

If you want a bit of everything, a pasta pack is your best bet. From $25, each pack has your choice of four fresh pastas and two sauces, oils or salts.

“The reason why there’s 13 pastas and eight sauces is because I want people to be creative, and I want people to mix and match,” says Esfahani. “So you could get two gnocchi and a porcini sauce and have that, then you could get two of our pumpkin and sage ravioli and have it with our tomato sauce. When people can pick and choose it gives them variety.”

All pastas and sauces come packaged in temperature-controlled, insulated boxes to ensure freshness is retained, and come with straightforward cooking instructions. “It’s all very simple; all of our pastas take two to three minutes to cook because it’s so fresh. I want people to feel like they can make quality food without making this huge fancy thing,” Esfahani says.

Order online here by 7pm for next-day delivery. Deliveries are made every Tuesday to Friday Sydney-wide between 10am–6pm. The delivery schedule is available at checkout. A flat fee of $5 is applied to all deliveries across Sydney with a minimum order of $25, or free delivery for all orders over $50.

danspasta.com.au
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