Through the doors of 1702 Summit St. is a 500-square-foot room, its kitchen smaller than some found in single-family residences.
There’s nowhere to hide for the chefs rolling pasta dough by a brick-lined oven. A pony wall does little to obscure cooks from their customers, who crane their necks to watch the slicing and dicing.
Zero Zero, named after the finely milled Italian flour, is a pasta shop on Kansas City’s West Side that’s been operating as a restaurant for about a year.
Lumache alla norcina, a pasta dish at Zero Zero Italian restaurant, which features handmade pasta dishes using local ingredients.
It’s not hard to imagine, but the little shop wasn’t intended to be a dinner spot. Its 12 seats fit snugly between a few tables and window-facing counter. Customers must mind their knees and elbows.
About 20 people can sit on its highly weather-dependent patio, where rain clouds could threaten to ruin their evening. But honestly, said owners Mitch Fagan and Leah Steinberg, they don’t want a bigger restaurant.
“It’s unique for Kansas City,” Steinberg said, sitting next to her fiancé, Fagan. “There’s not a lot of dining spaces that are this small, that have the kitchen quite literally in arm’s length, almost.”
Behind them, a crew feverishly readies for guests who’ve waited weeks, perhaps months to get in. By determination or sheer luck, those who are soon to arrive beat the masses for a seat.
To those who can (and can’t) get in
Despite its hole-in-the-wall scenes that rival something found in New York, Zero Zero is hardly a secret. It’s quickly become one of the most, if not the most, difficult restaurants in Kansas City to get into.
Reservations disappear “instantly,” said Steinberg.
Regularly, Facebook and Reddit posts advertise reservation swaps for those whose plans have changed. (“I’ve got a 5:30,” comments one.)
For readers who are ready to enter the fight: reservations are released every day at 9 a.m. for 30 days out. If anyone doesn’t want to plan so far in advance, patio reservations are released that day. Inclement weather is the main motivation for releasing the open-air patio seats on a day-to-day basis.
There’s a waiting list for those who miss the first round of reservations, so they’ll be notified first of any potential cancellations.
The exterior of Zero Zero Homemade Pasta.
For Fagan and Steinberg, the fact that customers must be strategic isn’t an afterthought. It informs their entire process: how they cook, how they interact with guests. It perhaps even enhances the experience.
“It’s something we talk about with the team almost every day,” Fagan said. “People do wait a long time to get in here, so we just like to be able to elevate our service to be able to live up to the expectations.”
Something must be working. Recently, restaurant tracking platform Beli ranked them as the sixth-best Italian restaurant in the U.S. It’s the first time the fast local favorite has heard national applause.
It’s a wonder that Zero Zero, with its miniscule dining area and low-budget advertising, is known at all. Most of the buzz has been organic, the owners say, with word-of-mouth and social media doing the heavy lifting.
“We don’t do a lot of marketing, we just do what we do,” Fagan said. “We put out a product that we’re really proud of.”
The two dishes they’ll never nix
What they believe sets them apart from other Italian restaurants — or one of the factors, at least — is their reliance on local producers. The West Bottom’s Marion Milling provides 100% of the grains for Zero Zero’s handmade, stuffed pasta.
Eggs for Zero Zero’s pasta dough are from Campo Lindo Farms, just north of the metro. Barham Family Farms in Kearney provides meat, and spots like Urbavore and Crum’s Heirlooms supply produce.
They’re so dependent on their local purveyors, Fagan said, that they’ll craft their menu around whatever is in season for area farmers.
Spicy vodka radiatori, a pasta dish at Zero Zero in Kansas City.
All of Zero Zero’s extruded pasta (made from a machine that pushes dehydrated dough) is a blend of imported Italian semolina and Marion Milling flour. After extruding, it’s left to dry.
They pay close attention to the texture, hoping to create a perfectly al dente, almost chewy, pasta.
“I think that’s why people keep coming back, is every time you come here, you get something incredibly hyper local with also really excellent technique that we’re drawing from Italy,” Fagan said.
The two dishes that have remained on its menu are its the lumache alla norcina (Barham’s sausage with mushrooms, white wine and cream $23) and the spicy vodka radiatori (creamy stracciatella and Parmesan for $21).
The menu is small, with just two additional rotating pasta dishes. Currently, it’s chitarra alla gricia (guanciale, black pepper, pecorino Romano for $23) and pansotti (buttered corn, creamed corn, crispy corn and chili crunch for $24).
Conceptually, Zero Zero’s sauces each pay homage to a specific region in Italy, harkening upon Midwestern offerings and Italian inspiration.
Pansotti, a pasta dish at Zero Zero, on Wednesday, September 3, 2026, in Kansas City. With one of the most sought after reservations in the city, this pasta restaurant features handmade pasta dishes using local ingredients.
“The idea is to kind of take these techniques and incorporate local ingredients,” Fagan said. “I think the best compliment we get from folks is when they’ve just gotten back from Italy, and they’re like, ‘This just reminds me of my vacation.'”
A doctor’s precision and accidental success
It was after an Italian vacation of their own, in fact, that the couple decided to start making pasta. At the time, they exclusively served their products to friends and family.
Fagan, an emergency medicine doctor, has always loved fine dining. His detail oriented self found something satisfying in creating the near-perfect pasta.
“The way I learned how to study medicine was in a very rigorous way,” he said. “I was able to kind of apply that to food in a similar way.”
They started serving pasta delivery-style during COVID. In 2021, they began selling at the Brookside Farmers Market. Not long after, they obtained their West Side space for dry pasta to-go. The retail shop opened in 2022.
Last winter, during restaurant week, the pair decided to offer restaurant week specials as a limited-time offer. The idea was received with such excitement, they extended it a week. Then, another.
“We kinda decided that this was just so fun, why don’t we do it all the time?” Steinberg said. “If we can do it for one week and be a success why not add this to our already incredible concept that we love?”
Fagan is still a doctor, and Steinberg owns her own marketing company, so they lean on a strong team to keep the restaurant running.
Much of the work is credit to front of house lead Ian Hulon, production sous chef Daniel Chacon and service sous chef Malachi Podrebarac.
On a recent mid-week afternoon, Hulon sat across from The Star on Zero Zero’s patio and said he took a job with the restaurant because of the owners’ eagle-eye for quality ingredients. The former owner of UnKCorked Wine & Spirits in Overland Park grew up in a small farm town, where meals came straight from the ground (or grazed upon it).
“I like the fact that they know exactly where everything comes from that they put into a dish. That means a lot to me,” he said. “It’s always best to support local as much as you can.”
Customers must appreciate it, too, he said, as they often travel from surrounding cities and states to taste Zero Zero’s dishes. Lots of Omaha natives make day trips, he said.
It’s rewarding for Steinberg and Fagan to see the reservation list fill up, to hear stories of customers crossing the Nebraksa-Missouri border in the name of pasta.
Zero Zero owners Leah Steinberg and Mitchell Fagan outside their restaurant in Kansas City. With one of the most sought after reservations in the city, this pasta restaurant features handmade pasta dishes using local ingredients.
Just a few years ago, the pair had zero restaurant experience. Now Zero Zero is a legendary name in Kansas City dining. Perhaps they’ll crest national acclaim, too, but the owners want customers to know their local-focus isn’t disappearing.
“It’s really cool and rewarding to see other people in Kansas City also think that this is cool,” Steinberg said. “We always knew we would like it. It’s really, really awesome that people like it as well.”
Dining and Cooking