Johnny Bechamel’s opens in Denver, serving fresh handmade pasta

Johnny Bechamel’s has opened at 81 South Pennsylvania Street in Denver’s Speer neighborhood, giving the city another handmade-pasta option in a central, well-traveled stretch. The restaurant is tied to chefs Alex Figura and Spencer White, the duo behind Dio Mio and Redeemer Pizza, and it is positioned as Mamas & Papas Hospitality Group’s first full-service restaurant.

The pasta is the point. Johnny Bechamel’s Instagram bio says the kitchen is making pasta fresh every single day, the restaurant is open seven days a week, and February reservations are live. That framing matters in a city where a new Italian room has to signal more than a standard red-sauce menu to pull diners away from places they already know.

The space leans into that same mix of craft and play. Eater Denver noted a vintage Pizza Hut lamp in the dining room, a detail that fits Figura and White’s habit of mixing serious pasta work with a wink. The restaurant’s website identifies it as an Italian restaurant in Wash Park Denver, while the opening post places it firmly at 81 South Pennsylvania Street, setting it within easy reach of both Speer regulars and diners coming in from other parts of central Denver.

Service details already show a restaurant built to operate like a real neighborhood fixture. Grubhub lists pickup and delivery from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. at the same address, and Yelp lists the restaurant as having just opened in December. An Instagram post set the opening for Friday, December 12, giving the launch a clear date and a dinner-service focus from the start.

That puts Johnny Bechamel’s into Denver’s crowded but still active Italian conversation, where pasta, pizza and parm continue to draw steady demand and spots such as Bar Dough and Restaurant Olivia have kept the bar high. In Speer, the new room is making its case with location, ownership and technique: a full-service Italian restaurant built around handmade pasta, not one that treats it as an afterthought.