With Franco-Italian roots in her blood and pasta in her heart, Sophia sharpened her skills (and her tagliatelle) from Naples to Bologna before dropping anchor in Saint-Cyprien to conduct the Toulouse Pasta Club – an urban hideaway with lipstick-red lettering that hums like a late-night neighborhood dance. Utensils dangle from the walls, a long counter lines up a handful of stools, and you perch there to watch, inhale and devour the magic as it happens. Forget a physical menu. Here, it’s all about homemade pasta, rolled out with a mattarello just like in Italy, stretched whisper-thin as silk sheets. At lunch, it’s Banco: swift but never rushed, a proper pause in the day. By night, Bancaro: a set menu, just you, her and a clutch of Italian gems made for passing and swooning over. That evening’s lineup was all sun and swagger, a warm-hearted spread that catapulted us straight to the Med: mini cucumber and ricotta to spark the aperitivo; a Tuscan olive oil flavor-bomb with a kick of spice and a jaw-droppingly good fennel-pecorino pesto made for dunking hunks of country bread from La Panivore; crisp zucchini blossoms with ricotta salata and pepper jam buried under an avalanche of pecorino romano; a sea-kissed crescendo of squid embellished with magnolia pickles and peschiole (those tiny unripe peaches pickled in brine); roasted watermelon, sun-warm and slumped onto a swoosh of almond cream; linguine alla crudaiola, all raw tomato brightness and freshly chopped chili bringing the heat; before a light-footed finish with a lemon and basil syrup cannolo, breezy, sharp and never cloying. · Marie Delcampo

FEELING THIRSTY? A knockout wine lineup curated by Manon (of La Vigneronne, the wine shop next door): B8, a Minervois pét nat from Cléa and Benjamin Taillandier (€6 a glass), Montmajou, a white saint-chinian from Domaine des Éminades (€19.80 a bottle) and Doucinello, a red vacqueyras from Domaine Le Sang des Cailloux (€23.80).

PRICE: Set menus €15-20 (lunch) and €35 (dinner).