A new Sugar House restaurant serves classic Italian tastes with a modern spin

This article is excerpted from the Utah Eats newsletter. To get the full newsletter every Wednesday, subscribe at sltrib.com/newsletters.

Hello, Eaters! There’s a cozy new Italian restaurant in a rustic house across the street from Sugar House Park — and according to its chef/owner, less than a month after opening, it’s already filling up with customers.

Vongole Pasta opened just after Thanksgiving at 1405 E. 2100 South, Salt Lake City. After a slow first night, customers have been flocking to it, said Chawaphol Leetrakul, the chef and owner known simply as Chef Boyd.

Chef Boyd is from Thailand, but has lived in the U.S., Europe and Asia the last couple of decades. He said he worked at a French restaurant in midtown Manhattan, just a couple blocks from Times Square, from 2002 to 2006. After that, he said, he studied at Le Cordon Bleu in London, then worked at a French restaurant back in Thailand for a while.

He came back to the U.S. in 2018, and for a time worked at a Thai restaurant in Wyoming before moving to Utah. Here, he took over Ekamai Thai, where Vongole Pasta is now, and transformed it into an Italian restaurant.

“We do pasta in a modern way, with original taste,” Chef Boyd said. The sauces — marinara, bolognese, arrabbiata, alfredo and so on — are classic flavors, all made from scratch in Chef Boyd’s kitchen. Menu items are modernly presented, too, such as the oysters Rockefeller ($28), which include flakes of edible gold leaf.

That’s one of the “chef’s special” dishes on the menu. There’s also pinsa — Roman-style oval pizza — for $19 each. (You can read about what I ordered in the “Dish of the Week” entry.)

The star of the show is the pasta, which customers can order their way — picking a pasta (the choices are spaghetti, squid ink linguini, tagliatelle, penne and angel hair) and an accompanying sauce (for $18). For an added charge, you can top off the pasta with a protein: Wagyu hamburger or seared salmon for $9; scallop or chicken cordon bleu for $12; picanha (steak), “gift of the sea” (squid, black mussel, scallop and shrimp) or oyster Rockefeller for $14; or lobster tail for $18.

There’s also side dishes and salads (like the caesar salad), a dessert menu and a pretty extensive wine list — as evidenced by the bottles that line one side of the restaurant’s back hallway.

Chef Boyd has more plans for the restaurant in 2026. He aims to clean up the basement, so he has a place to make his pasta in-house. (For now, he’s buying fresh pasta from local suppliers.) And, in the summer, he’ll open up the patio for outdoor dining.

Vongole Pasta is open Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. for lunch and 5 to 10 p.m. for dinner. Sunday hours are noon to 9 p.m. Reservations are advised; go to vongolepastautah.com to make them.

Live deliciously,

Sean

P.S. The Utah Eats newsletter will be taking a break for Christmas. No newsletter on Dec. 24, and no online version Dec. 25 — but we’ll be back in your inboxes on Dec. 31 and online Jan. 1. I hope all of you Eaters have a joyous holiday, enjoying good food with people you love.

Food News

• Christmas is rapidly approaching, so if you want to order takeout or plan to dine out on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, now’s the time to make your reservations. The Tribune’s annual listing of restaurants’ Christmas offerings is online, with updates since it was first posted.

• Gourmandise, the Salt Lake City bakery, was named last week to DoorDash’s “Rising Stars: The Holiday Dessert 50,” a list of “fan-favorite independent bakeries and dessert shops” across the country. It’s the only Utah business on the list.

• Ritual Chocolate, the Heber chocolatier, has launched a new chocolate bar in a partnership with Deer Valley Resort. The Deer Valley Resort Mountain Milk Chocolate Bar blends organic, sustainably grown cacao with grassfed A2 milk, according to a news release issued Tuesday. It will be available at retail locations at the resort in Park City.

Openings:

• Mama Bird, a Southern “comfort-style” restaurant, opened last week in the Jordan Landing shopping complex, at 7273 Plaza Center Dr., West Jordan. Inspired by the Texas roots of co-founders Jeffrey and Liam Frederick and following the company’s Las Vegas flagship, the West Jordan location boasts a menu of Southern dishes, including shrimp and grits, fried chicken and blackened catfish. There’s also a shop, Mama’s Mercantile, that offers house-made Liam’s Ginger Beer, gifts and artisanal goods. Through the holidays, a portion of the restaurant’s dessert proceeds will support the Utah Food Bank, according to a news release.

• Wetzel’s Pretzels, the national pretzel bakery chain, has opened its fifth Utah location — and, like the other four, it’s inside a Walmart. This one’s at 949 Grassland Drive, in American Fork. The franchise operators, Alex Winder and Seth Teague, have opened all five locations in just two years, and are looking to add more, according to the trade publication QSR. The other four locations are in Walmart stores in West Valley City, Centerville, Clinton and Harrisville.

• Vessel Kitchen, the Utah health-conscious restaurant chain, is opening a location in Logan in January, the company said in a release Tuesday. The location is at 76 E. 200 North, in the old Fire Station 70, which is being refurbished into a retail and office development. The Logan restaurant will be the company’s 10th in Utah.

• Orange Leaf, a frozen yogurt chain, is opening its first Utah location on Saturday, Jan. 3, at 1491 S. River Road, St. George. The store will have a grand opening that day, noon to 5 p.m., with buy-one-get-one-free deals, plus giveaways.

Booze (and Drink!) News

• Park City has a new lounge, a music-centered pop-up called the Velvet Room. The lounge opened Dec. 10 below The Cabin, at 427 Main St., according to the news website TownLift. It’s the brainchild of Bryce Clarke, who boasts years of experience overseeing private events for Tao Hospitality Group in Las Vegas. Memberships are available for the Velvet Room, Clarke told Townlift, but not required.

Dish of the Week

The word “spicy” on a menu always presents a risky challenge. Just how spicy is the dish?

The arrabiata sauce at Vongole Pasta lands on the mild end of the spectrum. The peppery flavor is detectable, not jolting. It nicely compliments the freshness of the tomato sauce without overwhelming it. I chose the tagliatelle, and the broad noodles carried the sauce well.

Also, when you dine at Vongole Pasta, enjoy the pesto rosso that comes with the bread when you start your meal. It’s a mix of pecans, sun-dried tomatoes and Parmesan cheese that sets you up nicely for the flavors to come.