French chefs hope to open pasta-and-wine shop in Charlestown where you can watch them make pasta from the front window

The Boston Licensing Board decides tomorrow whether to let former L'Espalier chiefs Matthew Dilisle and Peter McGough open a pasta-and-wine shop at 40 Main St. in Charlestown, where customers walking home from their jobs downtown could pick up some fresh pasta and pair it with what their attorney called "finer wines and more interesting beers."

The two chefs would fill a critical need in the almost non-existent Charlestown culinary scene, their attorney, Scott Holmes, told the board at a hearing today.

Addressing the public need for a shop like that - a question asked at all liquor-license hearings - Holmes said, "you have to live in Charlestown to know there's a public need for it, there's just really nothing in Charlestown." The closest restaurants, he said, both specialize in hamburgers and French fries.

In contrast, gourmet pasta freshly made by "chefs of this caliber" in a shop whose analogues exist mainly in Paris, Rome and the North End would prove a "destination point," not just for Charlestown residents but even people from the North End, Holmes said.

In addition to his experience at L'Espalier, McGough also previously worked at California's French Laundry, most recently famous as the place where that state's politicians went for maskless dinners at the height of the pandemic.

Both chefs live in Charlestown.