30 DAYS OPEN PURCHASEPick it up first. The solid walnut handle is dark, warm and grained in that way that makes every one look a little different, and it's shaped to rest securely in your palm and almost ask to be pressed down. Beneath it sits a round stamp with a fluted edge in champagne-coloured metal, a colour somewhere between brass and old gold that makes an ordinary floury worktop look a little more like a stage.
Then there's the mechanism. Inside the fluted ring is an anodised aluminium disc resting on a spring. Place a dollop of filling on a sheet of pasta, a second sheet on top, and press the stamp down with a quick, firm push. The disc meets the dough first, gently pressing out the air and spreading the filling evenly, and right after that the fluted edge cuts through both layers and presses them together into a tight seal. When you lift, the spring pushes the ravioli out again. The kind of precision you don't notice until you've tried doing the same thing with a glass and a fork.
The diameter is 6.5 cm, which gives generous round ravioli with room for a proper filling and the classic fluted edge all round. It's the size for a raviolo that's allowed to take up space on the plate: ricotta and spinach, mushroom and truffle, braised veal or pumpkin and amaretti. The stamp works just as well for biscuits and shortcrust.
The stamp is part of Marcato's Heritage range, where dark walnut and brass meet in kitchen tools inspired by the 20th-century Italian kitchen. It's a tool you choose because it feels good to use, and one you're happy to leave out afterwards. Marcato has been making kitchen tools in Campodarsego near Padua since 1930.
Makes round ravioli with a fluted edge, approx. 65 mm in diameter. Champagne-coloured metal stamp with sprung disc in anodised aluminium, solid walnut handle. Wipe clean with a cloth. Made in Italy.
