“I’m eternally grateful for this dish because it caused a lot of noise when we first opened Padella and was the main reason we had queues around the block. Quite simply, it put us on the map,” says the chef behind Padella, Tim Siadatan.
“I’m fully aware it’s different to the classic Roman recipe that uses pecorino Romano, pepper and water, which is totally delicious. And if I was opening Padella today, I would have called it ‘Pici with butter, Parmesan and black pepper’, because I didn’t know it would upset some people. The truth is, in a restaurant in Panzano, I saw an Italian chef add butter to their cacio e pepe and when I asked her why, she said, ‘because I’m not in Rome’.
