Chef, cookbook author and MasterChef judge Stefano Faita has launched a new dining concept in Toronto.
On Tuesday September 29, BYOPasta will be Toronto’s first-ever restaurant that only serves past sauces – for free.
The one-day experience will take place at 135 Ossington in Trinity-Bellwoods and operate in a take-out lunch format. Guests can simply bring their own cooked pasta, pick a sauce and Faita will take care of the rest, elevating plain, neglected leftovers into a restaurant-quality dish.
The menu will feature five of his personal favourites: Alla Vodka, Tomato Basil, Marinara, Rosée and Alfredo.
“People often forget about leftover pasta sitting in their fridge, especially when it’s plain and needs a little love. So why not let a chef take care of it?” said Faita. “We want Torontonians to taste for themselves how the right sauce can turn plain leftover pasta into something much better — whether you’re at home or joining us at BYOPasta.”
The tomato sauces feature imported sun-ripened tomatoes grown in Striano, near Naples, and contain no gluten, no preservatives or added sugar.
BYOPasta will take place on Tuesday, September 29th from 11 AM to 4 PM at 135 Ossington. People who bring their own pasta will also receive a complimentary coupon exchangeable for a free Stefano Faita sauce at most Ontario grocery retailers, including Loblaws, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart, Longo’s, Fortinos, Farm Boy and more.
In an interview with Retail Insider, Montreal-based Faita discussed the initiative.
What prompted you to create BYOPasta, and what are you hoping to learn from turning the concept into a one-day pop-up restaurant experience?
BYOPasta really came from something that happens in every house: you make pasta for dinner and somehow you always make too much. Then it sits in the fridge and nobody really knows what to do with it.
We thought it would be fun to show people that with a really good sauce, those leftovers can become a completely different meal.
The pop-up also gives us a chance to take Stefano out of the grocery aisle and put the product directly into people’s hands in a way that feels memorable and a little unexpected. Of course, we want people to taste the sauces, but more importantly, we want them to experience what the brand is about: good food, simple and good ingredients, Italian inspiration and not taking ourselves too seriously.
For us, it’s also a chance to have some fun with the brand, see how people react to the idea and learn which sauces and flavours they gravitate toward.
How does BYOPasta fit into your broader strategy for the Stefano Faita sauce brand and its growth in the Canadian grocery market?
BYOPasta is really about getting people to try the product. We can talk about the sauces all day, but once people taste them, they understand what we’re trying to do.
Toronto is obviously a very important market for us, so BYOPasta gives us a fun way to connect directly with consumers and hopefully get more people discovering the brand. Rather than simply telling people our sauces are good, we’re creating an experience where they can taste them, interact with the brand so they remember us the next time they’re grocery shopping.
It’s also about making sure people feel what makes us different. At the end of the day, we want Stefano Faita to become one of the go-to Italian food brands in Canada. Experiences like this help us build that connection.
Why did you choose Toronto and the Ossington neighbourhood for the launch, and what does the city’s food and retail market represent for the brand?
Toronto was an easy choice. Our sauces have been available for a couple of years here. It’s a city that really loves food where people are curious and have a real appreciation for good ingredients.
Ossington in particular felt right because it has become a destination for food and hospitality, so it felt like the right environment for something playful and unexpected like BYOPasta. We wanted this to feel like a real food experience and not just brand activation.
There’s also a growing momentum in Toronto and across the country to support Canadian-made products, and we pride ourselves in being crafted in Canada. It just felt like the perfect place to bring this experience to life. To share the Italian-inspired flavours that are at the heart of our sauces.
How is the sauce business performing today, and how has the brand’s distribution and retail presence evolved since you launched the sauces in 2017?
It’s been pretty incredible. When we launched the sauces back in 2017, we were a small Montreal brand trying to get onto grocery shelves. Today, we’re available across Canada at most of the major retailers, and the business continues to grow.
You can now find our sauces at retailers like Sobeys, Loblaws, Metro, Longo’s, Fortinos, Farm Boy and, more recently, Walmart. What started as a strong family business in Quebec has gradually grown into a much more than a local brand. Ontario in particular has become an important market for us.
The sauce portfolio has grown too. We started with a few core Italian classics and have continued adding flavours that give consumers more variety while still staying true to the kind of food we love to eat and cook at home.
What excites us most is that we still feel like we’re at the beginning. There are a lot of Canadians who haven’t tried our products yet, and there’s still a lot of room to grow..
For us, that’s the exciting part: the brand has come a long way over the last nine years, but there’s still so much opportunity ahead.
What are your plans for the Stefano Faita brand beyond this one-day BYOPasta event, including potential new products, retail expansion or other restaurant and experiential concepts?
There’s a lot ahead. We’re always working on new products and looking at where the Stefano brand can go next, but we’re pretty disciplined about it. We don’t want to put the Stefano name on something just because we can. It has to make sense for the brand and, most importantly, it has to be clean quality ingredients that taste really good.
There’s still a lot of opportunity for us in Canada. We want to keep growing our presence nationally, strengthen the categories we’re already in and continue introducing Stefano to people who may not know the brand yet. At the same time, we’re also starting to look more seriously into the U.S. and what that next phase of growth could look like.
Next year is also a big one for us. We’ll be celebrating Stefano’s 10th anniversary. It’s a chance to look back at how far the brand has come, but also to think about how we want to celebrate with the people who have been part of that journey.
We definitely think you’ll see us doing more events like BYOPasta. Food is meant to be shared. Bringing people together around the table has always been at the heart of what we do. As we head into our 10th year, we want to create more moments where people can taste the food, interact with the brand, have fun and feel part of the famiglia.
For us, that’s still one of the best ways to build Stefano: get people around a table, serve them something really good and create a moment we will all remember together.
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