Onda Pasta

Andrea Onetti has a passionate relationship with his pasta that begins with an intimate connection with his bags of Italian flour.  

“If the bag of flour has been open for two days, I know the difference,” Andrea said. “I talk to pasta. I consider it alive and a living thing. And if you give the proper respect to what you are making, it will make you a living.”

Andrea Onetti, who grew up in the “disorganized anthill” that is Rome, has been making a living out of pasta making as the owner of Honolulu-based Onda Pasta since 2012. Just a year before that, Andrea visited O‘ahu and was captivated by the Waimanalo-side of the Ko‘olau mountains. He said that the mountains awakened child-like awe in him and he expected T-Rexes to come out of them Jurassic Park-style. Ten years later, with almost a decade of making fresh, handmade pasta in Hawai‘i under his belt, he said that he still feels a sense of reverence for the mountains when he looks up with the same strong belief that dinosaurs will jump out of them.

Onda, which means wave in Italian, according to Andrea, is an easy and somehow a familiar-sounding word to pronounce, and seemingly safe from people like myself to butcher. It’s also an apt name for a business that is ever-changing and challenging like waves and surfing.

The nature of flour, for example, can be so sensitive that pasta he made in a Waimanalo kitchen turned out so differently (even with the same recipe) from pasta he made in a Waialua kitchen.

“The pasta was breaking,” Andrea said. “I couldn’t wrap my head around it until a customer said that my spinach pasta was so bouncy and elastic. Then I realized that the difference was the water.” Andrea adjusted the Waialua recipe based on the customer’s feedback thus fixing the breaking bad pasta mystery.

“Pasta is my life,” Andrea said. “It’s not a dream. I breathe pasta. I am pasta. I enjoy making pasta. Every day is a challenge to make it better.”

What a special treat for Farm Link Hawai‘i to represent such a hardworking artisan that is deeply serious when it comes to providing his community with delicious, high-quality food, but one who can also appreciate the magical beauty of this very same community in the eyes of a silly child unafraid of judgment. 

Support your local pasta maker and try one or a few of Onda Pasta’s products and find your favorite pasta for your favorite sauce.

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