Perfect for a traditional ragù, a rosé sauce, a spicy arrabbiata, grilled vegetables, or a perfectly golden pasta bake: the deep ridges of penne rigate were designed for one thing only—to hold the sauce both inside and out, right down to the very last bite.
You can recognize a penna by its beveled cut, shaped like the quill pen from which it gets its name, and its fine ridges that grip the sauce. Bronze-drawn, they maintain all the firmness of durum wheat on the tooth.

From the very first bite, something happens in your mind before you’ve even finished chewing. The brain recognizes this golden wheat flavor—simple, warm, and slightly sweet on the finish—and it doesn't try to analyze it: it just feels. A sense of peace first, like stepping into a kitchen where someone was waiting for you. Then a quiet joy, the kind found at a large table in Italy where no one watches the clock and every penna holds a bit of sauce in the hollow of its ridges. And deep down, that sweet nostalgia for a Sunday you think you’ve already lived, even if you never have. The flavor lingers on the palate, and the emotion even longer.

In 1865, near Genoa, a pasta maker from San Martino d’Albaro, Giovanni Battista Capurro, obtained a patent for a machine that could cut pasta on a bias without crushing it. Thus was born the penna, the "quill," with its signature diagonal tip that is instantly recognizable. Since then, it has become one of Italy's most beloved formats.

Pasta Alica has been carrying on this same expertise since the 1920s in Laurenzana, in the province of Potenza. It all began with Grandma Anna, assisted by two of her thirteen sons, Rocco and Francesco, who opened a small grocery store for the local farmers. In 1928, this shop became the Michele Crisci wholesale house, one of the most important in Southern Italy, and that same family passion still guides Pasta Alica today.

Everything starts with the finest Italian durum wheat, grown in the fertile lands of Basilicata and the Tavoliere delle Puglie. The grains are slowly ground into a fine semolina, then worked with pure Lucanian water at temperatures never exceeding 25 °C to preserve the wheat's natural proteins. The pasta is bronze-extruded, which gives each penna a slightly rough surface designed to trap sauce. It then dries slowly for nearly two days, between 36 °C and 40 °C, to maintain its amber color and a perfect al dente texture.

You don't buy penne rigate for an ordinary meal. You buy them for that moment when the sauce rushes into every ridge, when every bite tastes like a Sunday in Italy, when the house smells wonderful and no one wants it to end.

And somewhere in Canada, on a weeknight passing by too quickly, someone drains these penne and closes their eyes for a second. For the time it takes to eat a plate of pasta, they are elsewhere, in Basilicata, where this tradition has never changed.

Why our customers love them:

• 🇮🇹 Made in Italy, in Basilicata
• 🌾 100% Italian durum wheat, grown in Basilicata and the Tavoliere delle Puglie
• 🥉 Bronze-extruded for a rough surface that holds sauce
• 🌡️ Slow-dried for nearly 48 hours, between 36 °C and 40 °C
• 💧 Worked with Lucanian water at less than 25 °C
• 🍝 Beveled cut and deep ridges, ideal for ragù, rosé sauce, arrabbiata, grilled vegetables, or gratins
• 👵 Italian family heritage passed down since the 1920s