Pasta, Present, Future?

Tony and Rosa Hanslits

I had never been inside Indianapolis’s legendary pasta emporium Nicole-Taylor’s Pasta + Market + Backroom Eatery. After living in Indianapolis for three years, I drove by the unassuming SoBro location sandwiched between a fitness studio and a cupcake shop.

When I popped into the Italian shop dedicated to everything bel paese (Italian for beautiful country) on a winter’s day, it felt like I had stepped into a local alimentari (Italian grocery) I once frequented in Montefalco, a tiny medieval town in Umbria, Italy.

Scrumptious memories rallied to the forefront as I circled the big wooden table laid out with regional goods. Attractive bottles of olive oil lined the shelves with cans of tuna packed in oil. A half dozen varieties of bottles of balsamic vinegar. Roasted peppers jarred prettily. Imported Marzano tomatoes. An array of distinctively different cheeses and fresh housemade pasta lined the deli cases. While I was wrapped tightly against the frigid air outside, the inside of the market adorned in Tuscan yellow felt warmed by the Mediterranean sun. Then, Rosa Hanslits appeared from the back, welcoming me like a nonna (Italian grandmother), arms spread wide for a hug.

Inarguably, Rosa and Tony Hanslits are food royalty in Indianapolis. Since the mid-1980s, Tony either opened or worked in more than half a dozen area restaurants while Rosa parlayed her Italian heritage into a fresh pasta mini empire.

Additionally, Tony was the director of culinary education of The Chef’s Academy, a school dedicated to creating homegrown chefs. While it only lasted for a decade, The Chef’s Academy, a division of the now-closed Harrison College, offered bachelor and associate degree programs in culinary arts and hospitality. It was the first of its kind in the city and within Indiana’s university system, with a regional campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. By the time the accredited program ended in 2018, approximately 425 students had enrolled and more than 200 graduated with more than 90 percent of graduates obtaining employment.

Rosa took me to the appropriately named Backroom Eatery located behind the retail area. The walls along the passage were lined with magazine and newspaper clippings, detailing the lengthy career of Rosa and her husband, Chef Tony Hanslits. Full-page stories from old local magazines to the current local daily newspaper and even Edible Indy decorated the space. It’s a literal framed history of the Hanslits’ life in food; in truth, four decades of Circle City dining as well.

As we sat at one of the bar tables waiting for Tony, the matriarch of Indy’s fresh pasta began. “We love Indianapolis. It’s been our home for 40 years, but it’s time for us to start a new chapter.”

The new era for the couple means packing up and moving to North Carolina, where their two daughters reside, Ashley Nicole and Katherine Taylor, after whom the business was named. They’re looking for a management team to run the daily operations as they seek new options for themselves. “It’s going to be hard, but, in the same breath, I can also say that it’s going to be a happy time for us.” Rosa’s eyes began to tear. “We can spend time with our girls. We can be grandparents.”

At about this time, Tony came ambling over in his chef’s coat, dusted with flour and tomatoes. “Rosa always wanted to do a market,” he says, “and that’s what kind of drove the restaurant. It was a passion of ours.”

This mural was painted on the Nicole-Taylor’s Pasta building by Elani Harper.

The walls along the passage were lined with magazine and newspaper clippings, detailing the lengthy career of Rosa and her husband, Chef Tony Hanslits. Full-page stories from old local magazines to the current local daily newspaper and even Edible Indy decorated the space. It’s a literal framed history of the Hanslits’ life in food; in truth, four decades of Circle City dining as well.

At 65, Chef Hanslits moves slower, less sure of his body. For years now Tony has been suffering from multiple illnesses including kidney disease. Chef had his first transplant in 2003. “I’m getting ready to go back on dialysis someday soon,” he reports, scuttling up on the barstool. “As soon as they tell me. I got a transplant 20 years ago, and it’s starting to fail. It’s preventive maintenance to go into dialysis while they search for a new kidney donor.” It was after one of his surgeries and a year sabbatical that they decided to rethink the future, Rosa says. “And… that’s how we started selling our fresh pastas at (area) farmers markets.”

In 1989, noted Italian food journalist Carlo Petrini started Slow Food, a movement founded to protect and preserve local food cultures and traditions. Around the same time, Tony and Rosa became part of Indianapolis’s culinary and cultural legacy by implementing locally sourced ingredients, one of the Slow Food tenets. Tony began his rise to kitchen stardom, working with restaurateur Peter George of Peter’s restaurant. For four and a half years, he toiled in Fountain Square before opening other eateries, including Something Different and 14 West. Sharing Petrini’s and eco-conscious opposition to big agriculture and farming, Tony and Rosa for the next 40 years rolled out restaurants that still resonate today. Chef Tony, with his Johnson & Wales culinary arts degree, essentially advocated the Slow Food movement throughout his career, furthering gastronomy to burgeoning Midwest chefs of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

“Chef Tony Hanslits has been a key player in the local restaurant scene since he was the opening chef at Peter’s in 1985,” says Hoosier food writer Jolene Ketzenberger. “That’s almost 40 years, an incredible run for anybody in the restaurant biz. He’s trained other chefs, both at The Chef’s Academy as well as in his own kitchens, including the still-missed Tavola Di Tosa.”

Of course, Rosa’s Italian background instigated their culinary pursuits. While raised in Northern Indiana’s “the region,” she was born in the Reggio Calabria region, the “toe” of Italy. A “kick away” from Sicily, the area is home to Calabrian chili, bergamot, nduja sausage and the hand-rolled raschiatelli, a long tubular noodle. Her family moved to South Bend, where she eventually met Tony.

While Tony was behind the scenes battling stoves, sous chefs and sauces, Rosa built community markets such as Tosa Café, the addendum to their restaurant. Rosa spearheaded the farmers trade and direct sales to consumers for their pastas, right up to today where she oversees the edible stock in the shop and the local distribution of pasta to many surrounding restaurants and markets.

The couple created a delicious life in Circle City. Importantly, their legacy will be remembered as bringing fresh Italian pasta to Naptown and mentoring many Hoosier chefs working today. They helped pioneer the careers of Bluebeard’s Abbi Merriss, Steven Oakley, Erin Kem of Scarlet Lane, and Neal Brown, from Neal Brown’s Hospitality.

“Chef Tony was my original ‘chef’ in terms of being a first mentor,” said Brown in an email. “He was innovating Italian food around the same time Mario Batali brought elevated Italian to the forefront at Babbo. I would submit, Chef was cooking at the same and maybe even a higher level during their time at Tavola di Tosa.”

Nicole-Taylor’s Pasta + Market + Backroom Eatery opened in the summer of 2009. “He and Rosa also built a loyal clientele for their fresh pasta at farmers markets and then opened a great little shop,” says Ketzenberger. “A terrific lunch spot as well. And their chef dinners around their big kitchen prep table became such a hit that they started selling out a year in advance.” As we chatted in their dining area, I watched a young man sitting in front of a pasta extruder in an area marked “Pasta Room” with large letters over the door. He deftly swiped about two inches of something tubular. I’ve only met this dynamic duo of the kitchen and feel connected to them. I feel a sense of grief that Indianapolis will lose not only great food but also real icons and neighbors.

“Tony and Rosa have been so influential in my career and in the local food community for as long as I’ve known them,” said Brown. “They have championed the regional specialties in Italian cooking like no one has before or since. I love that they are such a good and fun team too. They’re high-quality people who have raised two great girls and a gondola full of cooks and hospitality pros. Indy owes them a monument.” 

Nicole-Taylor’s Pasta + Market + Backroom Eatery 
1134 E. 54th St., Indianapolis 
NicoleTaylorsPasta.com

Chef’s Table 2023 In November 2022, people lined up in the darkness of the morning (as they have for over 13 years) to wait in line to secure one of the coveted 2023 Chef’s Table reservations. And as it has every year, it sold out in a few hours. The Chef’s Table will continue through 2023 in a capacity that will be determined as the journey for Tony and Rosa becomes clearer. As with life itself, change is inevitable. With management, chef and hostess changes, the Chef’s Table and Nicole-Taylor’s Pasta + Market may take on a new life… only time will tell. Photography: Jennifer L. Rubenstein