CAN YOU eat one of the best meals in Bowling Green while sitting in your car? Yes, you can — that’s if you pay a visit to Danny’s Pasta Co & Focacciaria on College Street, housed in a tiny cinder block building. When I say “tiny,” I mean “sardine can” tiny. Danny’s has a few tables outdoors, but this amazing pasta deserves more than being eaten in a parking lot. If this restaurant ever expanded into a larger dining space that served wine, it could be in the top running for the best restaurant in Bowling Green.
Danny’s has a very cute, small grocery area where you can buy items like Italian sodas, imported olive oils and tomato pastes, coffee, spices, and Alessi breadsticks. A refrigerator case is stocked with homemade pizza dough, pasta sauces, and burrata. The restaurant counter houses delicious homemade focaccia pizzas, where you can get everything from a Margherita to whatever specialty combination the staff dreams up that day. The pepperoni was the perfect combination of chewy yet airy, with a robust tomato sauce covered in some spicy pepperoni. The sausage and jalapeno was another standout.
You can create your own pasta by picking which pasta, protein, vegetables, or sauces you want to be added or choose from the house favorites. We picked the Bucatini Cacio e Pepe, which is one of the simplest Italian dishes but also one of the easiest for a restaurant to mess up. That was not the case with this traditional Roman pasta, which was perfectly creamy and flavored with salty Parmigiano and bourbon pepper. The Orecchiette Merguez is a dish I’m still thinking about, consisting of mushrooms, garlic, sausage, tomato paste, and tongue-scorching harissa — all cooled down with splotches of creamy goat cheese. It’s fantastic.
Danny’s is one of the best places to eat in Bowling Green, and I hope it expands into a traditional dining space. Food this excellent really deserves to. GN
