An Ember & Oak Alum Is Opening a 22-Seat Pasta Bar Downtown

Marco Salvatierra, who spent two years on the pasta station at Ember & Oak in Los Altos, will open a 22-seat restaurant called Filo at 411 South First Street in early September, taking over the space Aster vacated in March.

The menu is deliberately narrow: eight pastas, three snacks, one dessert, and a short list of Italian and Central Coast wine. Everything is rolled and cut in a glassed-in room at the front of the restaurant that Salvatierra describes as "the only decoration we could afford."

We are not doing appetisers. If you want a salad, there are four places within a block that will make you a better one than I will.

Pricing will run $19 to $28 a plate, with a stated goal of getting two people out the door under $90 including a glass of wine each. Salvatierra says roughly half the seats will be held for walk-ins each night.

What is going in the space

Aster’s buildout is largely staying — the bar, the tile, and the awkward step down into the back room all survive. The kitchen is being reworked to add a second pasta boiler and, notably, to remove the wood grill that Aster built the room around in 2023.

Filo is Salvatierra’s first restaurant. Opening is targeted for the first week of September, with a soft-open period for neighbourhood residents in late August. Hours will be Tuesday through Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m.