Dining

The story behind Nove’s signature spaghetti (and how to make it yourself)

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You don’t have to be a fishmonger to get why this fragrant dish is one of Nove’s greatest specialties.
Photo: Beverly Poppe

Nove Spaghetti is truly the signature dish at Nove Italiano at the Palms; it existed in the minds of N9NE Group executives well before they created the restaurant or put chef Geno Bernardo in charge of its kitchen. “Even before I was around, probably around 2001 or 2002, they all went to Italy and ate at Quincy and Gabrieli in Rome,” says Bernardo, who opened the consistently popular Nove in 2006. “They walked in and saw this little pasta station, just like we have, cooking their signature seafood pasta: black and white spaghetti, shellfish, maybe langostino or whatever the fishmonger had fresh that day in a nice lobster-fennel sauce.”

The Details

Nove Italiano
Palms, 942-6800.
Sunday-Thursday, 6-10 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 6-11 p.m.

The N9NE execs sent their chef to Italy years ago, and Bernardo retraced their footsteps all the way to Quincy and Gabrieli. “I was blown away,” he says. “I saw what it meant to them, this dish. And that’s why on Fridays and Saturdays, we put someone out there at that little station and he only cooks the Nove Spaghetti. That dish rocks.”

Nove Spaghetti

(serves 2-4)

Ingredients:

8 oz. cooked linguine

6 oz. seafood marinara (details below)

1/2 cup dry white wine

32 mussels (cleaned)

16-20 littleneck clams

16-20 medium shrimp

2 oz. calamari

Maine lobster (tail, claw, elbow)

1/2 cup fresh basil leaves

3/4 cup julienned celery,

fennel and leeks

2 oz. butter

2 oz. king crab meat

Seafood Marinara:

2 cups marinara tomato

sauce with basil

1 cup reduced lobster stock

1 pinch toasted saffron

1 tsp. ground fennel

2 sprigs rosemary

1/4 cup chopped parsley

Method: Combine seafood marinara ingredients and simmer. In a small pot, steam the mussels and clams in white wine. In a large skillet, sauté the shrimp and calamari. Add lobster meat, mussels, clams and seafood marinara sauce. Then add the basil, vegetables, butter, mussels, clams and finally linguine. Season to taste and serve family-style, topped with crab meat.

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Brock Radke

Brock Radke is an award-winning writer and columnist who currently occupies the role of managing editor at Las Vegas Weekly ...

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