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(From left) Billy Fallen and Caleb Shriver of Billy Pasta
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Billy Pasta is located inside Ellwood Thompson’s market in Carytown.
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The customer ordering station
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Billy Pasta offers made-to-order pasta along with grab-and-go options.
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Casarecce pasta with corn, tomato and basil sauce with crunchy garlic topping
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Noodle options include fettuccine, spaghetti, fusilli and more. Gluten-free options are available upon request.
Bread marked his first foray into the Richmond dining scene, later followed by pizza, and now Billy Fallen has embraced another carb-centric concept, this time joined by former Dutch & Co. owner and chef Caleb Shriver.
On Tuesday, Aug. 2, Billy Pasta, a fast-casual, made-to-order venture dedicated to pasta and its accompaniments, debuted inside Ellwood Thompson’s in Carytown.
“Pasta gives us such a great palette to add things to,” says Fallen, a culinary institute graduate who was put on the pasta station at one of his first kitchen jobs. “It absorbs a lot of flavor, so it’s fun that way. It’s an accessible food everyone has eaten in their life.”
The partnership between Fallen, Shriver and Ellwood Thompson’s founder Rick Hood was organic, all of them sharing a devotion to local producers. Ellwood’s has been a faithful supporter of Fallen’s products, from his Billy Bread baguettes (now produced by another bakery) to Billy Pie frozen pizzas, for years. Looking for a food concept to operate at Ellwood’s cafe The Beet, Hood reached out to Fallen about opening an outpost of Billy Pie inside the store. But Fallen felt that there was a better fit.
Following the closure of his acclaimed Church Hill restaurant Dutch & Co. in 2020, Shriver, who had launched a supplemental pasta menu at the eatery years ago, began working at Billy Pie. Around the same time Hood reached out about bringing an in-house concept to life at Ellwood’s, Fallen also received a call from a friend, restaurateur and seasoned pasta maker in Williamsburg who had purchased a hefty amount of equipment for production.
Equipped with the proper tools for primo pasta making, a space to introduce his third carb-centric vision, and an eager, talented chef who was ready for a challenge, Fallen saw an opportunity in the form of conchiglie and linguine.
“[It] kind of worked out, and [the] timing was perfect,” Fallen says. “I asked [Caleb], ‘Do you want to do this together?’ ”
Inside Ellwood’s, an ordering station allows patrons to order cups of freshly made egg-based noodles to go. The current lineup of sauces include a classic marinara; Bolognese; kale and lemon-ricotta pesto; cacio e pepe; and a seasonal corn, tomato and basil. Providing a playful crunch, crisp toppings such as chile-garlic, saffron and hazelnut can be added to the pasta dishes as a final touch. Gluten-free pastas are also available upon request.
A cold case at the Billy Pasta counter — an area Fallen describes as a “mini Italian market” — houses burrata and beet salad with a sherry-orange dressing, mixed greens and fennel with lemon-mustard vinaigrette, and boxes of grab-and-go pasta from fusilli to casarecce and fettuccine.
With access to the products offered at Ellwood’s, Billy Pasta sources tomatoes from Tomten Farm in Prince Edward County, in addition to eggs, beef, pork, and grass-fed butters and cheeses from the store.
“When Rick and I were brainstorming this whole thing, he wanted to make sure we are going to be using all of they stuff they carry in Ellwood’s; it’s a very symbiotic relationship,” Fallen says. “Pairing up with Rick at Ellwood, we have access to all the relationships they’ve built with produce suppliers and farmers, and that was really important for Rick, Caleb and I.”
In the back-to-basics concept, it’s all about small touches, from brass dies on the pasta machines that create a rough textural surface allowing sauces to adhere to the noodles to using pasta water to bump up the starch in sauces.
“We’re building pretty simple stuff but putting a few things together with it,” Fallen says.“I think people understand what Caleb does, and what I do, and we like quality and strive for and bring that to people, and letting people experience it is pretty exciting.”
Last month, Fallen bid farewell to his brick-and-mortar pizza shop at Patterson and Three Chopt in order to shift focus and amp up production of his frozen pizzas. Diners can still get fresh pies locally during brewery hours at Basic City Beer Co. in Manchester, where Fallen has secured a residency. In addition to Charlottesville and Waynesboro brewery collaborations, he has three more on the horizon for Williamsburg, Danville and Fredericksburg.
Billy Pasta is located inside Ellwood Thompson’s at 4 N. Thompson St. and is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.
