L’Artusi Bucatini all’Amatriciana (The West Village Classic, Made at Home)
Prep time: 10 min Cook time: 30 min Servings: 4
L’Artusi opened in 2008 at 228 West 10th Street in the West Village and quickly became one of the most reliably excellent Italian restaurants in New York City. The room seats about 80 and takes reservations through Resy — booked weeks out on weekends, but without the celebrity spectacle that follows Carbone or the Michelin-star gravity of Marea. L’Artusi’s reputation comes entirely from the food: a tight menu of hand-rolled pastas, honest Italian wines, and a guanciale-forward kitchen where cured pork cheek is treated as the foundation, not the accent. The bucatini all’amatriciana has been the signature since day one.
The dish at L’Artusi costs $29. The version you make at home, if you source real guanciale, costs about $8 a plate.
What Makes Amatriciana Different from Other Tomato Pasta
Amatriciana is not a tomato pasta with pork added. It is a pork-fat pasta that uses tomatoes to balance and stretch the guanciale’s richness. Strip the tomatoes out entirely and you get its ancestor, pasta alla gricia — just guanciale, Pecorino, and black pepper. The distinction matters because it changes how you build the sauce: you render the guanciale first, low and slow, until the fat fully clarifies — then you cook everything else in that fat. The tomatoes go into the guanciale fat. The pasta finishes in the guanciale fat. The Pecorino emulsifies into the guanciale fat. Every flavor in the dish passes through the pork.
Guanciale — cured pork cheek — has a higher fat-to-meat ratio than pancetta and a cleaner, sweeter pork character with no smokiness. When rendered slowly over medium-low heat, the fat becomes translucent and the meat crisps to a chip-like texture that holds up as a garnish. This is the single most important step in the recipe. Rushed guanciale — cooked over high heat until it sizzles and browns quickly — renders less fat, stays chewier, and develops bitter caramelized edges that fight with the tomato. Give it 8 to 10 minutes at medium-low. Let the fat melt out completely before you move on.
The Roman Rules — and Why L’Artusi Follows Them
Amatriciana has a contentious history. The dish comes from Amatrice, a town in the Lazio mountains, where in 2015 the municipality officially codified the recipe: guanciale, San Marzano tomatoes, Pecorino Romano, dried chili, white wine, and pasta from Amatrice (the local wheat-only spaghetti). No onion. No garlic. No olive oil. No pancetta.
Most Roman trattorias follow this blueprint closely. L’Artusi does too, with one caveat worth noting: their Pecorino application. Most home recipes add Pecorino as a tableside topping only. L’Artusi tosses a portion of it directly into the pasta off heat, letting the residual heat and pasta water emulsify the cheese into a light coating. The same technique appears in carbonara and cacio e pepe. The result is a sauce that clings to the bucatini rather than sitting beneath it.
The Pasta: Why Bucatini
Bucatini is thick spaghetti with a hollow center. The hollow traps sauce inside the tube while the exterior picks up the Pecorino and guanciale fat, giving you two textures in one bite. The diameter — roughly 3mm, compared to 2mm for standard spaghetti — also means bucatini holds up to the weight of guanciale-fat sauce without going limp. L’Artusi uses it for both reasons.
If you cannot find bucatini, rigatoni or thick spaghetti (spaghettoni) are the best alternatives. Standard thin spaghetti works but tends to clump at the finish step, when you are tossing the pasta vigorously in the sauce.
Cost at the Restaurant vs. At Home
The $29 price at L’Artusi reflects West Village commercial rent, front-of-house staff, and a wine program. At home:
| L’Artusi | Homemade (4 servings) | |
|---|---|---|
| Per plate | ~$29 | — |
| Full batch (4 plates) | ~$116 | ~$28–32 |
| Per serving | ~$29 | ~$7–8 |
| Savings per plate | — | ~$21 |
The guanciale is the only specialty-cost item — roughly $8 to $12 for 6 oz at an Italian deli or specialty grocer. Everything else is standard grocery territory.
The Three Techniques Most Home Versions Miss
1. Render the guanciale at medium-low, not medium-high
This is the most frequently rushed step. High heat produces crispy meat quickly but leaves most of the fat unreleased — you get chewy browned pieces and a dry pan. Medium-low heat over 8 to 10 minutes renders almost all the fat out, leaving the meat delicate-crispy and the pan with enough liquid fat to build a proper sauce. That fat is the entire flavor base.
2. Pull the pasta 2 minutes early and finish it in the sauce
Pasta cooked fully in water and then plated with sauce on top is a different dish from pasta that finishes its last 2 minutes in the sauce. In the sauce, the pasta absorbs the guanciale fat and tomato, the pasta starch thickens the sauce into a glossy coating, and the Pecorino binds everything together. Fully cooked pasta poured into sauce just gets coated on the outside — the inside is neutral.
3. Add the Pecorino off heat, not while still over the flame
Pecorino Romano is sharp and salty with a low melting point. Over direct heat it seizes into rubbery clumps. Off heat — with the pan still warm and pasta water helping emulsify — it melts smoothly into a faint white sheen across the sauce. This is why amatriciana, carbonara, and cacio e pepe all specify removing from heat before the cheese goes in.
Related Roman and NYC Italian Recipes
If you’re working through the Roman pasta canon or other New York Italian signatures, these pair naturally with this one:
- Ci Siamo Rigatoni alla Gricia — amatriciana’s tomato-less ancestor, built on the same slow-rendered guanciale.
- Via Carota Cacio e Pepe — the off-heat Pecorino emulsion technique in its purest form.
- Carbone Spicy Rigatoni Vodka — the other famous Greenwich Village pasta people recreate at home.
- The Viral TikTok Pasta all’Amatriciana — the simplified, weeknight version of this same dish.
