The
best of
d u r ha m
primo pasta
Authenticity is the name of the game for this readers’ favorite food artisan
armella Alvaro
grew up in Liverpool, New York, in a traditional Italian American household. She was the first in her family to be born in America. Her parents, Giuseppe and Giuseppa, sister, Rita, and brother, Rocco, were born in Calabria in southern Italy. “[My childhood] was great, and I am thankful for it every day,” Carmella says. “Growing up, my Italian community was strong at the time, and every holiday and personal milestone was celebrated with lots of people [and] huge tables of food – all homemade.” Fresh gnocchi, fettucine and ravioli, the products of Carmella Alvaro Reamer (pictured right) and She moved to Raleigh in 2010 her team at Melina’s Fresh Pasta. “I started out making the pasta by hand with a KitchenAid mixer from the Washington, D.C., area attachment and a small ravioli mold,” Carmella says. and “started the business in a little apartment kitchen,” Carmella says. She operated as Melina’s Italian Kitchen until 2011, when she how handsome he is for 30 minutes every morning [cuts] into decided to fully focus on fresh pasta. She then changed the name to my pasta-making time,” Carmella jokes. Melina’s Fresh Pasta, which stems from Carmella’s family nickname, Carmella opened a storefront for Melina’s Fresh Pasta in a Carmelina. In 2012, she decided to settle her home and business in quaint, homey building on Chapel Hill Road in December 2017. north Durham, operating out of her 400-square-foot garage until The floorplan was designed to be an open concept so that people she was able to move into a commercial building. She shares that could see the pasta production in action and feel more connected to home with her husband, Billy Reamer, whom she married in 2019, the process. “When I was younger, I would spend Saturdays going and their new rescue pup, Bruno. “Petting [Bruno] and telling him to the local Italian butcher to get meat, then to the Italian bakery Reamer
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