There’s a reason why many restaurants will often push pasta entrees onto their customers: high profit potential. Since tons of different noodles are a filling and inexpensive base for diners, businesses can clear nice margins on them.
Now this might rub some customers the wrong way, especially if they’re spending good money to eat at a fancy place. Some might think that if they’re eating at a classy joint, the pastas would be made in house.
However, a TikToker named Phoebe (@yngpzy) was shocked to learn this was not the case during a recent outing. Their heart sank after seeing a store-bought pasta box in the back of the establishment.
“When you order pasta at a fancy restaurant and see this,” a text overlay in the video reads.
Phoebe films a red-sauce pasta in a dish. She then pans her camera up to a propped open door that leads to the kitchen. Resting on top of the shelf is a blue box of Barilla Farfalle pasta. An audio clip attached to the video features a woman exclaiming “oh my God” once the dried goods box is revealed to their audience.
“The Barilla Betrayal of 2024,” Phoebe penned in a caption for her video.
Is store-bought bad?
The debate as to whether or not it’s a lame move for restaurants to implement pre-made products in their menus has popped up on TikTok before.
A similar thing happened to a Crumbl cookies customer who noticed an employee of the chain using Betty Crocker mix. Throngs of people argued that not all store-bought created cookies are equal. In the case of Crumbl, the cooking techniques, coupled with other ingredients, made its offerings unique.
The same could be said of many pasta dishes. In fact, you’ll find that a number of culinary enthusiasts and chefs actually prefer to cook with dry pasta. The Los Angeles Times penned an article that made an argument for dry pasta. The piece, which is penned by food scholar and cook Evan Kleiman, praises dry noodles. She says that in almost all cases she would prefer to buy store-bought dry pasta over any of its “fresh” offerings.
Acclaimed celebrity chef of the Jon Favreau’s Netflix series Chef Show, Roy Choi, has also professed his love for dry pasta on the series. Some of his more affordable pasta recipes have received serious love online. Again: it incorporates dry pasta and big flavors.
@yngpzy the Barilla Betrayal™ of 2024 😔 @barilla #sfeats ♬ Oh my god what is that – Shoftyz
Lost in the sauce
Phoebe’s disgruntled take on paying fancy restaurant prices and being served Barilla farfalle seems to be motivated by value perception. In many instances when it comes to a pasta dish’s quality, sauce and garnishes should be taken into account.
Let’s say the sauce was prepared with fresh ingredients from scratch. And if it includes high quality proteins or produce—then that could be the dish’s determining factor when it comes to price.
Several TikTokers who responded to Phoebe’s video said that they weren’t surprised restaurants use boxed pasta dishes.
“Unless they promote pasta made in house, it’s box,” one said.
Someone else wrote that other foods, such as desserts, are also brought into stores or are made from store bought ingredients. “Wait till you find about your favorite cake,” they said.
Another commenter said that sometimes it boils down to pantry inventory. “I worked at a restaurant where if we ran out of ingredients, they’d go to Walmart and buy the cheapest brand to replace it for the day or week,” they penned.
And this user said Barilla is the standard of restaurants all over: “Actually Barilla and De cecco are the standard for dried pasta you should be scared if you see something else. I prefer De cecco tho but barilla is acceptable.”
One TikToker didn’t seem too bothered by Barilla’s inclusion. “The magic of pasta is the sauce anyways,” they wrote.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Barilla via email and Phoebe via TikTok comment for further information.
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