Perfect for a carbonara, a cacio e pepe, a spicy 'nduja sauce, a hearty tomato sauce, or a rich ragù—the sharp edges of the spaghetto quadrato were designed for one thing: to grip the sauce where a round spaghetti would let it slide off.

You recognize a spaghetto quadrato with your fingertips even before you see it on the plate: instead of a round, smooth strand, a stem with sharp edges, almost knife-cut—as if the ancient gesture of the Abruzzese chitarra had been rediscovered a century later.

Somewhere in a kitchen in southern Italy, a sheet of fresh pasta rests on a wooden frame strung with metal wires—the chitarra. The rolling pin is pressed gently over it, and the pasta falls to the other side, cut not into a round shape, but a square. It is from this artisanal gesture, born in Abruzzo and adopted throughout southern Italy, that the shape of the spaghetto quadrato comes: a square cross-section rather than a round one, with edges that hold the sauce instead of letting it slip away.

Pasta Alica has been reproducing this same high standard of shape since the 1920s in Laurenzana, in the province of Potenza. It all began with Grandmother Anna, helped by two of her thirteen sons, Rocco and Francesco, who opened a small grocery store for local farmers. In 1928, this shop became the Michele Crisci wholesale house, one of the most important in southern Italy—and it is this same family passion that still guides Pasta Alica today.

Everything begins 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 a temperature that never exceeds 25°C, to preserve the wheat's natural proteins. The pasta is bronze-extruded, which gives each edge of the spaghetto quadrato a rough, toothsome surface designed to hold the sauce rather than letting it slide off. 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.

People don't buy spaghetti quadrati just to vary the shape on their plate. They buy them for that specific sensation—the sauce clinging to the four corners of the pasta, the bite that responds to the fork, that little detail reminding you that in Italy, even the shape of a noodle tells a story.

And one evening, here, between two emails and a busy night, that same square edge finds its way into a pot somewhere in Canada. For the time it takes for a sauce to simmer, you are somewhere else—in a kitchen in southern Italy, where the chitarra is still stringing its wires.

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 rough edges that grip the sauce
• 🌡️ Slow-dried for nearly 48 hours, between 36°C and 40°C
• 💧 Processed with Lucanian water at less than 25°C
• 🍝 Square cross-section inspired by spaghetti alla chitarra, perfect al dente cooking
• 👵 Italian family heritage passed down since the 1920s