Tamboli Pasta & Pizza slated to open up restaurant in Midtown
If you have ever tasted the homemade pastas and sauces Miles Tamboli sells at the Memphis Farmers Market and the Cooper-young Community Farmers Market, you know his attention to detail. His creations are the real deal, made from scratch as an old-school Italian chef would.
This fall, this Memphis chef is expanding his Tamboli Produce Co. brand beyond take-home pastas, sauces and Italian cheeses by opening a restaurant.
Set to open in September, Tamboli Pasta & Pizza will feature Tamboli’s popular pastas, as well as wood-fired pizzas.
The restaurant will be located at 1761 Madison Ave. in the building that most recently was home to Fuel Café.
“I wouldn’t have considered opening anywhere else,” he said. “My very first restaurant job was in this building when it was Petra.”
The building, which once was a gas station and garage and was converted to a restaurant many years ago, is owned by Miles’ father, Roy Tamboli, a well-known Memphis artist.
Tamboli said he had been playing with the idea of opening a restaurant for a while, but it was a pop-up he held in the space earlier this year that cemented the idea for him.
“It was so much fun,” he said of this sell-out night.
The menu
Tamboli describes the menu at his new restaurant as “simple and straightforward.”
“Everything will be made in house,” he said. “The ingredients will be fresh, seasonal and as local and sustainably sourced as possible.”
One dish Tamboli knows will definitely be on the pasta menu is casarecce with pesto. He said this Sicilian pasta has the perfect texture and surface area to be paired with pesto — a condiment he says he puts a lot of love into when making his version.
His enthusiasm over the wood-fire pizza oven is evident. “I love pizza,” he interjected when asked about this offering.
Like his pastas, Tamboli will make his pizza dough from scratch.
“I will be using ‘00’ flour so it will have both a nice crispness and chew to it,” he said.
He described his pizzas as thicker than the classic Neapolitan-style, but not necessarily a thick crust.
“I want people to be able to have leftovers,” he joked.
The space
Tamboli is making significant improvements to the building.
The open kitchen will be expanded into the entire current front room. To make up for the lost seating, Tamboli plans to enclose the outdoor patio with glass.
“The small dining room to the right of the current front door has a roll-up garage door that will be permanently opened onto the patio space, creating one large dining room,” he said.
He expects close to 50 or 60 seats total.
Patrons of Fuel Café will appreciate that one of the first remodeling tasks will be to update the existing, dated bathrooms.
“I have already added gardens all around the patio,” he said. “From the outside, the restaurant will look like it’s in a garden.”
Tamboli Pasta & Pizza will only be open for dinner at first. Tamboli said he hopes to eventually add lunch service and delivery options. His prepared take-home pastas, sauces and cheeses will still be available at area farmers markets.
Jennifer Chandler is the Food & Dining reporter at The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at jennifer.chandler @commercialappeal.com and you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @cookwjennifer.