CAROL DEPTOLLA

Tua Pasta, serving house-made noodles, is coming to downtown Milwaukee

Carol Deptolla

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Tua Pasta will open in part of the former John Hawks Pub space, in the 100 East Wisconsin building. Located beside the Milwaukee River and the Riverwalk, the restaurant plans patio seating for summer.

A counter-service restaurant making fresh pasta, called Tua Pasta, is in the works at the 100 East Wisconsin office tower.

Alvaro Niño de Guzman Sr. and his son, Alvaro Niño de Guzman Jr., hope for a late spring or early summer opening for the restaurant, which also would serve salads and gelato, and have beer and wine.

Customers would choose from four pasta shapes made fresh at the restaurant that they can see made, and choose the sauce they want — hence the name Tua Pasta, meaning your pasta in Italian, Niño Sr. said.

It's an idea he saw in other countries while traveling as a director for electrical-equipment maker Cooper Industries, managing plants being built abroad; the plants included restaurants serving 1,000 employees. While Nino Sr., a native of Bolivia, has experience in management, his son, who has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has 10 years of experience in restaurants.

“We’re trying to bring a fast-food concept with quality ingredients,” Niño Jr. said.

Diners at Tua Pasta also will be able to build salads, choosing the type of greens and other ingredients, and picking toppings for gelato.

The restaurant takes over part of what was John Hawks Pub, which closed in 2016.

That large space has been divided in two. Cory Sovine, senior vice president for Wisconsin for Colliers International, who brokered the lease, said Tua Pasta takes up about 4,200 square feet; about 1,800 square feet remain. The remaining space is not yet leased.

Tua Pasta will be in the space to the left, as seen from the Riverwalk. From the 100 East lobby, it's the area to the right.

Construction is expected to take three or four months; the decor will be a mix of modern and industrial, Niño Jr. said.

Niño Sr. noted that one of the attributes of fresh pasta is its rapid cooking time — much faster than dried pasta, which makes it ideal for a quick-service restaurant, especially one that's open for lunch and dinner in the heart of downtown, within easy walking distance of a number of offices.

Fresh pasta, typically found in finer-dining restaurants because of the labor involved, lately is making inroads in more casual restaurants. Another counter-service restaurant serving fresh pasta, Egg & Flour Pasta Bar, could open as soon as mid-March in Crossroads Collective, the east side food hall.

A full-service, casual restaurant making all of its own pastas and selling fresh pasta to cook at home, Ca'Lucchenzo, could open in spring at 6030 W. North Ave. in Wauwatosa.