Pastificio Gentile

The people behind it

The Gentile name dates back to 1876 and comes from the family that owned the pasta works at the time. In the 1980s the brand passed to the Zampino family, who have run it in Gragnano ever since and describe their work on their website in these words: “The history of the company is intertwined with that of our family, in the land we love, in the town where we were born and where everything happens: Gragnano, the town of pasta.”

At the centre of this story is pasta maker Natale Zampino, who has devoted himself to pasta from the very first day. At first production focused on hand-made fusilli, the shape rolled around a thin iron rod and left to dry slowly before it reaches the kitchen. As the company grew, the other long and short shapes followed, from spaghetti to mafalde, from candele to manicotti.

Alongside the pasta the family developed a line of preserves, made according to what mamma Maria learned from her own family and now passes on to the young women who work with her. The website presents Pastificio Gentile as the place where the Zampino family has gathered its daily work, with particular attention to the land where everything grows and is transformed: Campania. Today the brand also includes a bakery, a farm and a shop.

Sources: la Famiglia Zampino | Pastificio Gentile · CONSERVE | Pastificio Gentile · Pasta di Gragnano | 100% grano Italiano | Pasta Gentile

What they make

The heart of production is Pasta di Gragnano PGI, in a broad range of shapes: manicotti, long hollow fusilli, spaghetti in three thicknesses, cooking in 4, 8 and 12 minutes, spaghetti alla chitarra, linguine, bucatini, long candele, spaghettone, tagliatelle, long ziti, mafalde, pappardelle and lasagne, as well as the hand-made fusilli with which the family began. Alongside the traditional line there are organic wholewheat pasta and the Pappa & pomodoro line.

Drying follows the Cirillo Method, devised by the engineer of that name from Torre Annunziata to reproduce inside the pasta factory what sun and wind once did outdoors. In Gragnano pasta used to be hung out to dry along today’s Via Roma, the “street of maccheroni”; Cirillo designed chambers in which braziers, now replaced by large radiators, warmed the air while powerful fans circulated it. With this method Gentile pasta dries slowly, over three or four days, which gives it the texture sought by lovers of artisan pasta.

The range does not stop at pasta. There are preserves, olive oil, baked goods and a selection of gift boxes combining pasta and preserves. Everything is available at the Bottega Gentile, which the website presents as the place to find the whole world of the pasta maker, made of pasta, preserves, leavened bakes and wines, and in the online shop.

Sources: Pasta di Gragnano | 100% grano Italiano | Pasta Gentile · il Metodo Cirillo | Pastificio Gentile

Ingredients and territory

For its pasta, Pastificio Gentile starts with the choice of wheat. The Zampino family describes years of short trips to get to know and test the durum wheat varieties best suited to a firm, flavourful pasta. One of these trips led to the partnership with Selezione Casillo, which supplies the semolina used for every shape. Today the wheat for the traditional range comes from Puglia, a land of cereals: it is fully traceable and milled locally.

The same partnership has made other projects possible. The organic pasta is made from certified Italian organic semolina; the re-milled semolina also comes from Italian organic wheat; and the “Grano Italiano” line uses wheat grown in Campania and processed by Selezione Casillo in a mill near Naples, to the same standards as the traditional and wholewheat shapes. To know where the wheat in a given pack comes from, it is therefore worth checking which line it belongs to.

The preserves follow a different path. Vegetables and fruit are processed within a few hours of harvest, and the jars are filled by hand and checked one by one, without artificial preservatives. The website describes them as small treasure chests of the flavour of the raw ingredients, made with the method mamma Maria learned in her family. The range includes organic tomato passata and natural tomato fillets, alongside the pasta and the baked goods.

Sources: il Grano | Pastificio Gentile · CONSERVE | Pastificio Gentile · Pasta di Gragnano | 100% grano Italiano | Pasta Gentile

Recognition

On 19 June 2026 Gambero Rosso published, in its “La classifica” column, the 12 best artisan smooth penne, chosen by a panel of five experts in a blind tasting. In first place are Pastificio Gentile’s Penne di Gragnano PGI, ahead of Gerardo di Nola and 28 Pastai: the top three places all went to Gragnano. For Gentile the recognition concerns the core of its production, Pasta di Gragnano PGI slowly dried with the Cirillo Method, and it comes from a test in which the samples were tasted without knowing the brand.

Gambero Rosso also knows the brand for its preserves. The entry for Conserve Gentile in the magazine’s international guide presents it as the pasta maker’s artisan line of bottled foods, until recently known as San Nicola dei Miri, now working from a new facility in Valle dei Casali, Gragnano. Fruit and vegetables are picked by hand when ripe. Tomatoes make up most of the output, including San Marzano and PDO Piennolo, as sauces, some of them organic, and fillets, alongside pâtés, products in oil, jams, fruit preserves and fruit in syrup.

Sources: Gambero Rosso — La classifica: le 12 migliori penne lisce artigianali (19 giugno 2026) · Gambero Rosso International — Conserve Gentile · il Metodo Cirillo | Pastificio Gentile

Going there

The registered office of Pastificio Gentile is at Via Castello 12 in Gragnano. To reach the pasta works, the website suggests entering Piazza Aubry in the satnav: once in the square, just past the church bell tower, turn right towards the Valle dei Mulini and continue for about 500 metres; the pasta factory is on the left. The road thus leads into the Valle dei Mulini, the landscape in which Gragnano pasta grew up.

The website has a page for guided tours with online booking. At the end of October 2026 no dates were scheduled, and the pasta maker invites visitors to check again soon: anyone wishing to see the drying chambers at close range should follow that page or write in advance. Telephone and email are published at the foot of every page of the website.

Pasta, preserves, leavened bakes and wines are sold at the Bottega Gentile and in the online shop. In Gragnano it is worth rounding off the day with a walk along Via Roma, the “street of maccheroni” where pasta was once laid out in the sun: it shows where the Cirillo Method, which the pasta maker now uses to dry its shapes, comes from. Before setting off, the website’s recipe of the month shows the pasta maker’s shapes at work in the kitchen.

Sources: Dove siamo | Pastificio Gentile · Visita guidata | Pastificio Gentile · Pasta di Gragnano | 100% grano Italiano | Pasta Gentile · il Metodo Cirillo | Pastificio Gentile

Products and flavours

The region

Campania