Pastas

If you order one pasta here, make it this one. At 1,270 calories with 83 grams of protein it delivers more protein per calorie than any other full-size pasta on the menu, and it isn't close — the Fettuccini Alfredo needs 1,930 calories to give you 50 grams.

Chicken and shrimp both go in, over linguine, in a spiced tomato sauce with peppers and onion. The shellfish matters for allergies. So does the fish listed alongside it. I spent a long time assuming the Cajun dishes here would be the heaviest things on the menu, on the theory that anything described as spicy and creamy usually is. This one isn't creamy at all, and that's why the numbers work. Sodium still lands at 3,000 mg, which is the price of Cajun seasoning anywhere.

Vegetarian, 1,270 calories and 29 grams of protein, which gives it the second-worst protein-to-calorie ratio of any adult pasta here, after the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka.

Penne comes tossed with broccoli, asparagus, courgette, peppers and basil in olive oil and a light tomato sauce. It's a vegetable-led plate, not a cream pasta with vegetables stirred in. Sodium is 2,520 mg, gentle by the standards of this section.

As a light vegetarian dinner it works. As a main, add a starter with some protein in it.

Roasting is what the garlic is there for. Raw, it's sharp and aggressive, but after an hour in the oven the sugars caramelise and a whole clove goes soft and sweet enough to spread on bread.

Those cloves go into the cream sauce whole, over bowtie pasta with chicken. 1,870 calories, 95 grams of protein, 4,130 mg of sodium. That sodium is close to double a day's limit. It's heavy, though the Louisiana Chicken Pasta still outweighs it by 400 calories.

For the same flavour family lighter, the Pasta Da Vinci is 330 calories down and carries about 1,750 mg less sodium.

Alfredo di Lelio's original, served in Rome from around 1914, had no cream at all: fresh fettuccine, butter and parmesan, tossed at the table until the cheese melted into a sauce.

Hollywood made it famous. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford ate it on their 1920 honeymoon in Rome and brought the dish's name home with them, and the American version grew a cream sauce along the way.

The Cheesecake Factory's is a rich parmesan cream sauce. 78 grams of saturated fat, nearly four days of the FDA's 20-gram daily value. Vegetarian, 1,930 calories.

Adding chicken to the Fettuccini Alfredo costs $4 and 190 calories and gives you 41 more grams of protein, which is the best trade on this particular plate.

It doesn't fix the rest. 2,120 calories, tied with the Bruléed French Toast for fourth-heaviest on the whole menu. The 78 grams of saturated fat stay exactly where they were.

91 grams of protein. Take half home before you start.

$2 more than the chicken version. 19 fewer grams of protein.

Shrimp adds 120 calories and 22 grams of protein to the plain Fettuccini Alfredo, where chicken adds 190 calories and 41 grams, so per calorie the chicken is the better protein buy even before the price.

2,050 calories. Crustacean shellfish joins gluten, milk, eggs and wheat on the allergen list. Order it for the shrimp, not the numbers.

At 1,280 calories it's among the lighter pastas here, and it's vegetarian, which makes it the obvious pick for a meat-free table.

The sodium undoes some of that.

4,110 mg. That's close to twice a day's limit. Cheese is salt-cured, and four of them baked into one dish add up fast. People assume the calorie saving carries over to the salt. It doesn't. Mozzarella gives the pull, ricotta the softness, and romano and parmesan the sharp edge, all baked into marinara with basil.

It's baked rather than sauced. Gluten, wheat and milk are listed, so it suits vegetarians and not a dairy-free guest.

4,660 mg of sodium. Double the daily maximum in one bowl, and that's only the fourth-highest pasta here — Spaghetti and Meatballs runs 5,550.

The calories reach 2,270, third-highest of anything on the menu. It's built to stack salt: parmesan crust on the cutlets, cream sauce underneath, Cajun seasoning through the peppers and onion. Three salted components, layered rather than balanced. You get 98 grams of protein for it, so this isn't empty weight. It'll feed two people properly.

One thing that catches people: fish is in the allergen list. Most cream pastas here aren't, and nothing about parmesan-crusted chicken suggests otherwise.

139 grams of fat, third-highest on the menu. 2,030 calories.

Real carbonara has no cream in it — egg yolk, hard cheese and pasta water emulsify into a sauce, and that's the whole technique. This is the cream version, which is what almost every restaurant outside Rome serves, and there's no point pretending otherwise. It's rich in a different way. Heavier, more forgiving, less likely to split.

Bacon rather than guanciale, again the American convention. 50 grams of protein, 3,480 mg of sodium, and gluten, wheat and milk on the allergen list.

Split it or take half home. Eaten alone, that's 61 grams past the FDA's daily value for fat.

I send people here when they want the Madeira sauce without the damage.

It's the same reduced fortified wine as the Chicken Madeira, at 1,540 calories and 2,380 mg of sodium, which is about half the salt in the Louisiana Chicken Pasta. Reducing Madeira burns off the alcohol and concentrates the sugar. That's the faintly caramelised edge. Caramelised onions push the same direction, and the mushrooms pull the whole thing back toward savoury before it gets sweet.

Gluten, wheat and milk are listed, and nothing else. With 71 grams of protein it's a proper main, so if the pastas here usually beat you, start with this one.

At 5,090 mg of sodium it's the fifth-saltiest dish on the whole menu, and both proteins arrive already seasoned, since Italian sausage is salted and spiced before it ever meets the pan.

Rigatoni, shrimp, sausage, onions and mildly spicy peppers are tossed in marinara with fresh basil. The ridges on rigatoni are there to hold a chunky sauce. This is the right shape for it.

1,780 calories and 68 grams of protein. Drink water with it.

5,550 mg of sodium, the second-highest figure on the entire menu, beaten only by the Buffalo Blasts.

That's close to two and a half days of salt. The meatballs account for part of it, because they're made with Italian sausage and parmesan as well as beef. Tomato sauce adds more.

1,920 calories, 179 grams of carbohydrate. Split it, and keep the starter light.

Chipotle is a smoked, dried jalapeño, and smoking is what separates this from every other cream pasta on the menu. You get heat, but it arrives late and low rather than sharp. That's the whole appeal. It runs 1,770 calories and 3,230 mg of sodium, which is heavy but not the worst here — the Farfalle with Chicken and Roasted Garlic beats it on both counts. The 67 grams of protein come from the grilled chicken, and the asparagus and peppers do more work than you'd expect, because they're the only things breaking up the cream.

Gluten, wheat and milk are the only allergens listed. No egg, no nuts, no fish. For a dish this loaded that's a genuinely short list, and it makes this one of the easier pastas to order for a table with restrictions.

I'd order something else. Of every adult pasta here, this one gives you the least protein for the calories, 34 grams against 1,570, which puts it dead last.

Vodka's job in the sauce is mostly structural. It keeps the cream from splitting as the sauce reduces, and most of the alcohol cooks off. The sauce is genuinely good. Its texture is what you're paying for.

There's no meat in it, though, and 4,470 mg of sodium, so add grilled chicken or take the Cajun Jambalaya Pasta, which is 300 calories lighter with 83 grams of protein.

4,910 mg of sodium — more than the Louisiana Chicken Pasta, and third-highest of any pasta on this menu. A tomato and basil dish sounds like the restrained choice. It isn't.

Where it earns back some ground is protein: 72 grams for 1,720 calories, which is a better ratio than most of the cream pastas manage.

Fresh tomato, basil, garlic and parmesan over penne with grilled chicken. Soy appears in the allergens alongside gluten, wheat and milk, which is unusual for an Italian-style dish here and worth a look if soy is something you avoid.