Museo Italo Americano pasta contest celebrates home recipes in San Francisco

The pasta was the point, but so was everything around it: the stories behind the noodles, the family recipes, and the roomful of people deciding which dish carried the evening. Museo Italo Americano’s Pasta Contest 2026 turned Stem Kitchen & Garden at 499 Illinois St. into a community fundraiser built on tasting, participation, and the kind of Italian American food memory that lives best at a table.

The lineup gave the contest its character. Angela Alioto was among the featured names, alongside Ron Borelli and Beverley Siri Borelli, Gina Von Esmarch and Vyria Paselk Haverhals, Alessandra Guadagnoli, Nina Pelfini and Jean Amundsen, and Tori Ritchie and Dr. Jennifer Brokaw. The event’s focus on pasta creations inspired by original home recipes set it apart from a standard restaurant showcase, inviting guests to compare styles as much as flavors.

Held from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm on June 12, the contest leaned into its social side as much as its culinary one. Tickets were priced from $250.00 to $5,000.00, placing the evening in the museum’s donor-driven fundraising lane, but the mechanics were straightforward and hands-on: taste the dishes, vote, then stay for an opportunity drawing and a live auction. The relaxed garden setting at Stem Kitchen & Garden suited an event that felt less like a formal gala than a spirited, public celebration of who gets to carry a recipe forward.

That larger mission has been part of Museo Italo Americano since Giuliana Nardelli Haight founded it in 1978 in San Francisco’s North Beach. The museum describes itself as the preeminent museum in the United States devoted exclusively to Italian and Italian-American art and culture, and the Pasta Contest fits neatly into that identity by treating food as cultural record, not just entertainment. Through Alleanza, the volunteer group that supports the museum, the institution keeps a full calendar of events that includes the Antipasti Dinner, Festa dei Dolci, Bocce Ball Tournament, Pasta Contest, and SF Giants Italian Heritage night.

The contest also pointed toward the museum’s future. Museo Italo Americano is advancing a capital campaign for a new home at 940 Battery Street, where the second level is planned as a gathering place anchored by a demonstration kitchen. That makes the pasta contest feel especially on-brand: a night of voting, bidding, and family recipes today, and a blueprint for even more food-centered cultural life tomorrow.