Lo Scafo brings handmade pasta and Italian wines to Sandwich

Lo Scafo has arrived as the kind of opening that gives Sandwich a new reason to eat out: a focused pasta-and-wine room at 8 Jarves St., set inside La Passerella, a boutique hotel with eight rooms in a Victorian-era mansion. Opened Friday, May 22, the restaurant is pitching itself as a rustic osteria with handmade pastas, craft cocktails and a tighter Italian identity than the area’s usual red-sauce standby.

That narrow focus is what makes the place stand out. Instead of stretching across a broad menu, Lo Scafo is leaning into specialties from southern Italy and a changing lineup built around fresh, locally sourced ingredients. The restaurant’s all-Italian wine list reinforces that approach, turning the meal into a more deliberate first-course-to-last-sip experience. For Cape Cod diners used to seasonal spots that try to do everything, this one is aiming for a clearer point of view.

The menu gives that ambition some concrete shape. Diners can start with spaghetti “Aglio e Olio” con la Colatura, move to Pasta e Ceci, or go for fonduta ai porcini e salsiccia with pappardelle. Desserts rotate and are made in house, with pistachio olive oil cake and tiramisu among the signposts showing the kitchen is aiming for a polished finish without losing the comfort that keeps a pasta dinner approachable.

Hours matter here, too, because Lo Scafo is being rolled out as a destination meal rather than a drop-in stop. Dinner service begins at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, with Monday and Tuesday closed. On Sundays, the inn lists a 12 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. window for drinks and snacks, giving the room a daytime option in a town that already draws visitors for its historic center and the broader La Passerella property.

That setting carries extra weight in Sandwich, Cape Cod’s oldest town, first settled in 1637 and incorporated in 1639. With a 2020 census population of 20,259 and an estimated 20,575 in 2025, the town sits at the intersection of year-round local life and summer traffic, and a restaurant like Lo Scafo fits that mix. For diners deciding whether to make the trip, the answer comes down to this: if you want handmade pasta, an Italian wine list and a room that feels built for a destination dinner, Lo Scafo gives Sandwich something more ambitious than the usual Italian stop.