Pizzeria Cardamomo Opens in Downtown Redwood City Serving Homemade Pasta

Pizzeria Cardamomo, located at 2053A Broadway in downtown Redwood City, is serving housemade fresh pasta alongside sourdough pizzas and shareable antipasti as of March 5, 2026; co-owner and chef Momo Farouq said, “For three years, I’m looking for some place, but I’m never finding some place I like. I come (to) Redwood City…I feel a lot (of) energy.” The restaurant offers Italian wine and beer and outdoor dining, and food photography from the restaurant shows Farouq preparing a pistachio pasta with shellfish and spinach ravioli with cherry and sage sauce (photo credit Anna Hoch-Kenney).

Accounts conflict on when the Redwood City location first opened. An original report for this story states Pizzeria Cardamomo opened in downtown Redwood City in early March 2026, while The Catalyst (Lauren Zerella) wrote that the restaurant “opened this past September.” Try Bay Area published a lunch review in early February 2025 that described dining at Cardamomo, indicating the restaurant was operating well before March 2026; those earlier pieces and the later report cannot both be the sole opening date and are presented here as separate, source-attributed claims.

The business is owned by Farouq and Sarika Batra, who met in Como, Italy; 7x7 reports Batra first visited the original Pizzeria Cardamomo in July 2019 and moved to Como in 2021, and ThendbCatalyst notes the couple are now married. Farouq grew up in Morocco, immigrated to Italy at 16 and began in restaurants washing dishes before being mentored into the kitchen; Batra recounts an early anecdote: “One day, that chef called in sick, and Momo told the owner, ‘I can do it,’ and the owner was kind of reluctant. And not only did he do it, but his food was better than the chef. And then people started to come and only ask for Momo.”

The menu blends Northern Italian tradition with personal touches and seasonal rotations. UberEats lists Margherita as the #1 most liked pizza at $23, Tagliatelle Bolognese as a popular pasta at $27, and Carbonara pizza at $29. Specialty pies include Bronte ($28) with fior di latte, ricotta and pistachio pesto; Morocco with sausage, dried plums, roasted organic almonds and cinnamon; and Magica, described by a Try Bay Area reviewer as “ground beef, potatoes, mint and honey. Wow never had potatoes in pizza before! The crust is super thin and light! Not heavy at all.”

Dough and sourcing are central to Cardamomo’s identity. 7x7 reports the pizzeria uses natural yeast and organic stone-ground flour imported from Italy and describes a multi-day fermentation; Batra told the restaurant’s feature, “He’s so passionate about the way he makes his crust. He spends three days making his crust, and the temperature of the yeast, he keeps checking it.” The Redwood City menu adds salads and shareable plates for local diners, and photos show seasonal pastas such as pistachio with shellfish.

Practical details from the UberEats listing include a 4.8 rating from 22 reviews, hours that run weekends until 10:00 PM on Friday and Saturday and a split lunch-dinner schedule Tuesday through Thursday, and antipasti prices like Arancini Cacio e Pepe ($14) and bruschetta variants ($14–$15). Early local reviews praise the crust, arancina and an arugula-pear-walnut salad; Try Bay Area closed its Feb. 4, 2025 piece, “Wishing this restaurant lots of success in its new home in Redwood City and I think it won't be long until many more people find out about this hidden gem.”

The restaurant frames itself as mission-driven and community-focused in the original report, and with a seasonally evolving menu that ranges from Margherita ($23) to Tagliatelle Bolognese ($27), Pizzeria Cardamomo is positioning its Lake Como–born recipes and long-tended crust techniques squarely into Redwood City’s downtown dining scene.