Guidi Marcello Fresh Pasta Shop, Santa Monica: Saturday by 3

Guidi Marcello, at 1649 10th Street in Santa Monica, is not a storefront pasta counter with a rolling pin in the window. It is a family importer that supplies Italian restaurants across Southern California, and it keeps a retail market inside the same building on 10th Street, just south of Olympic Boulevard. If your search for a fresh pasta shop is really a search for the pasta that Los Angeles chefs cook with, this is where to look. The shelves hold bronze-die shapes from small Italian makers, slow-dried egg pasta, and a freezer of filled pasta that most supermarkets never stock.

The company history on the official site starts with its founder, Marcello Guidi, who left his Tuscan hometown of Lucca in 1945. His son Marco, now owner and president, moved the headquarters of Guidi Marcello Ltd. to Santa Monica in 1981. The family describes itself as a wholesaler first: the service page says it works with restaurants, chefs, retailers and distributors throughout Southern California and across state lines. That trade focus is why the range looks the way it does. Products are chosen for professional kitchens, then put on the market shelves for anyone who walks in.

The site states the split plainly: the wholesale department works five days a week, and the Italian market is open six. The homepage invites visitors to view the showroom or come shop at the store, and the service page offers a tour of the warehouse showroom for anyone in the Santa Monica area. Expect a working building rather than a boutique. Cases and pallets share the space with the shoppers, and the market sits alongside the restaurant trade rather than apart from it.

The pasta and rice page reads like a roll call of Italian producers. Martelli shows up with spaghetti and fusilli di Pisa, and Mancini supplies chitarra. There is paccheri from La Fabbrica della Pasta di Gragnano, pici from Michele Portoghese, and lines from Rummo, Morelli, Pirro, Borella, La Casa del Grano and Sicilia Tentazioni. If you have only ever cooked one supermarket brand, buy two producers of the same shape and cook them side by side. The rougher, bronze-cut surface holds sauce in a way you will notice on the first forkful.

For the closest thing to fresh egg pasta, look for Spinosi. The family's shop site, guidiwines.com, features the brand and notes that Spinosi has made pasta since 1933 with bronze dies, fresh eggs broken by hand and a slow drying process. On that site, Spinosi taglioloni, pappardelle and fettuccine each sell for $11.95 for a 250 gram pack, and the black tagliolini al nero di seppia is also $11.95. Those are thin, delicate ribbons that cook in a couple of minutes, much closer in texture to a fresh sheet than to ordinary dried spaghetti.

The real answer for fresh-pasta cravings is the frozen section. Guidi lists a Frozen Pasta and Sauce category that includes Surgital's Divine Creazioni line, scrigni filled with Apulian burrata, pumpkin ravioli, meat tortellini in the Emilian style, short rib tortelloni, ricotta and spinach tortelloni, frozen gnocchi and a ready lasagna Bolognese. These are the same kind of products the company sells to restaurant kitchens, and they go straight from the bag into boiling water. Tortellini and tortelloni are done a minute or two after they float. Toss them in butter and sage or a spoon of the store's sauces.

Gluten-free cooks have more choice here than usual. The gluten-free page lists Rummo gluten-free spaghetti, gluten-free pasta from Gragnano, corn pasta from Le Veneziane and Le Veneziane gluten-free potato gnocchi. Ask at the counter which shapes are in stock that week, since a wholesale floor turns over quickly when a restaurant places a big order.

Build the rest of the meal before you leave. Gustavo Magni extra virgin olive oil from Tuscany is listed at $35.95 a liter on guidiwines.com, and it is the kind of bottle worth saving for finishing rather than frying. Gessica Guidi is the family sommelier, and the wine side of the business carries Tuscan and Sicilian labels that pair with the pasta on the next aisle. The online shop also sells assembled boxes, including the Taste of Liguria at $69.95, the Taste of Tuscany at $109 and a Gourmet Gift Box at $119, which make an easy dinner-party gift.

Guidi Marcello's retail store keeps short hours, so plan around them. It is open Monday through Friday from 9:30 am to 5 pm and Saturday from 10:30 am to 3 pm, and it is closed on Sunday. There is no evening shopping window. Weekday mornings are calmest on the floor. Saturday is the only weekend option, and the 3 pm close catches out people who expect a grocery-store schedule. If you are cooking Saturday night, come before lunch, pick a filled pasta from the freezer and a box of Spinosi ribbons, and you are finished shopping in fifteen minutes.

Bring a cooler bag if you are buying frozen pasta, especially in summer, when Santa Monica traffic can turn a short drive home into a long one. Grocery orders can also be placed online through Mercato, which the official site links from its buy-online page, while wine shipments go only to the states listed there.

This part of Santa Monica is light-industrial, so build a short loop rather than a stroll. Memorial Park is a few minutes east on Olympic Boulevard, with ball fields, a skate park and shady benches, which is useful if you are shopping with kids. If you want a sandwich before the drive, Bay Cities Italian Deli and Bakery on Lincoln Boulevard is the classic Santa Monica stop for Italian subs and bread to go with the pasta. Bergamot Station Arts Center, a cluster of galleries in old rail sheds, is a short drive northeast and makes the trip feel like an outing rather than an errand.

Guidi Marcello Ltd. is at 1649 10th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90404. The retail market keeps Monday to Saturday hours and is closed on Sunday. Prices quoted here come from the family's online shop at guidiwines.com, since the market itself does not post shelf prices online. The nearest landmark is the corner of 10th Street and Olympic Boulevard, a short hop from the Interstate 10 exits at Lincoln Boulevard and Cloverfield Boulevard. Arrive with a short list: one dried shape, one Spinosi egg pasta, one frozen filled pasta and one good bottle of oil.

Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP to pair this stop with a nearby bakery or a wine bar for later, and it will map a route that gets the frozen tortellini home before it thaws.