Today’s Special: Megan’s Garganelli

Legend has it that garganelli originated with a Bolognese housewife who was making tortellini for her guests when she realized her cat had devoured all the filling. So she took the squares of pasta she had already cut for the tortellini, and then rolled them around a stick and over a loom comb for ridges. 

“She made it happen,” said Megan Gill, the 28-year-old executive chef at BLDG, a 70-seat, three-meal restaurant inside the iconic Hotel Marcel on Sargent Drive, as she added the pasta into boiling, salted water on a recent afternoon. 

Like the housewife, Gill and her team made the garganelli — a new menu item — from scratch by rolling it out into long sheets, cutting squares of dough, and shaping them around a stick before drying them for 36 hours.

In the case of BLDG and, in a larger sense, the Hotel Marcel, there was no felonious cat and no shortage of filling. In 2020, architect and developer Bruce Becker, principal of Becker + Becker, purchased the Pirelli Building and transformed the nine-story structure into an entirely electric hotel that operates fossil-fuel free.

Since then, the 165-room hotel has become a model for sustainability within the hospitality industry, earning in April 2023 the ​“LEED Platinum plaque” to signify it meets the highest standards of energy and environmental design.

For its part, BLDG is a zero-emission kitchen with a dedication to sourcing strictly from farms and local purveyors — each is listed on the back of the menu — and making what they can’t source on site.

It was the emphasis on sustainability that drew the effervescent Texan to New Haven in December 2022 for a three-month stint.

“I think there’s a huge disconnect to the food that gets put on your table,” she said as she sautéed green peas with extra virgin olive oil, adding a sauce of cream with garlic, shallots, and green onions, a rich aroma wafting through the brightly-lit, spotless kitchen. ​“I really want people to feel connected to their food, to leave here knowing exactly where it came from.” 

The garganelli is her recipe — a reason Gill cites for staying past her three-month contract: the opportunity to operate in a kitchen that afforded free range for her seemingly boundless creativity.

“Cooking and creating is when I’m the happiest, but I don’t have one of those stories of learning to cook from my mom,” she said as she set the pasta in the bowl. She took a few culinary classes in high school, then went to college in San Antonio for business. 

All along, she was working in kitchens — first at the Texas-based fast-food chain Whataburger in high school, then at a country club in San Antonio.

There, it seemed, she found her voice, and her calling. ​“I could come in with an idea and the chef would say ​‘cool,’” she said. ​“One day we did a pan-seared salmon with a poblano grit and an aji amarillo sauce, and that was really awesome.”

Around that time, a friend suggested she audition for Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen, a reality competition cooking show on Fox. She competed on its 20^th season, titled ​“Young Guns,” and placed second, distinguishing herself for her leadership qualities, natural talent — she has no formal training — and resilience.

She moved back home to Dallas, landing a position with the Dallas Cowboys on their culinary team. 

“I think one of my best memories was we did a wagyu-wrapped shrimp with a Cajun beurre blanc over a truffled potato croquette, and the offensive line loved it,” she said. 

These days, Gill seems to be basking in the opportunity to find the right partners that meet her, and the hotel’s, mission toward making a better product with less emissions.

There’s yogurt from Arethusa Farm in Litchfield, Hartford Plant Company​’s microgreens, and chicken and duck from La Belle Farms in Ferndale, N.Y.

Then there’s the beef from Four Mile River Farm, a family farm in Old Lyme. ​“The first bite you take, you can tell the amount of time and attention they’ve given that animal. It’s really the best beef I’ve had in my life.” 

“That’s coming from a woman who grew up in Texas, and that’s a big statement,” said manager Ben Webster, who appeared in the kitchen.

“We’re trying to change the perception of how you can make an impact, and food is so universal,” Gill said, garnishing the dish with torn basil and some shaved Parmigiano Reggiano. ​“It brings people together and — this is something I truly believe — it has the greatest potential to make the biggest impact in our world.” 

This reporter found Megan’s Garganelli a delight to the tastebuds. The creamy spring onion sauce had a savory quality that accentuated the simple goodness of the pasta, with the lively notes of lemon and fresh basil singing forth.

But it was the ridges on the pasta that were the highlight, conjuring, as it did, a daguerreotype image of a convivial group of family and friends around the rough-hewn table of that resourceful Bolognese homemaker.