So Pizza Hut has taken the plunge. This week it announced that it is to revamp its menu and change its name to Pasta Hut in an attempt to wean the nation off Meat Feasts and Hawaiians and on to spinach and ricotta cannelloni. There is even talk of sneaking “hidden vegetables into kids' meals”.

Introducing the £18million rebranding, Alasdair Murdoch, the company's chief executive, said: “We've changed, and we want people to realise that. We're proud of the developments that have taken place over the past few years and we hope that the name-change will make people reassess us and persuade them to come into our stores and see the changes for themselves. We're trying to say to people: ‘Yes, we're great at pizzas, but we're also great at salads and pasta'.”

Great at pizzas? That will be news to many. But before we all stampede to our nearest branch, there is a caveat. The rebranding is limited to just 30 restaurants and is on trial only until the end of the year, at which point customers will be invited to vote on what they think.

Murdoch denies that the exercise is a publicity stunt, but with pasta accounting for just 3 or 4 per cent of the company's sales - and by his own estimate likely to be only about 10 per cent in the weeks to come - it would be akin to McDonald's renaming itself McSalad's. Most people will be going to Pasta Hut for the pizzas, and you don't have to be Charles Saatchi to know that the name-change makes little marketing sense.

Pizza Hut rewrites its menu

The chain is introducing a new menu, intended, in tandem with a £35m refurbishment, to propel it into more upmarket terrain

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Much more likely is that, with the arrival of the credit crunch, Pizza Hut is simply trying to shift upmarket and, rather late in the day, has grasped one of life's immutable facts - that we middle classes don't go a bundle on pizzas. When we think Italian, we think pasta. Sure, we'll take the children (not “kids”, note) to Pizza Express for the occasional treat - especially now that nice Theo Randall, former head chef of The River Café, is consulting on its menu - but that is what pizza remains: an occasional, slightly guilty, treat. And the reason is simple: pasta is light, fresh and healthy. Even when we do use Parmesan and cream, it doesn't have the greasiness of pizza. It reminds us of Jamie Oliver and summers in Tuscany. Pizza is a coronary in a box that reeks of student flats and hangovers. If you want to come to dinner, I'll make you orecchiette with broccoli, anchovy and chilli, no problem, but I'm damned if I'm going to give you tuna and sweetcorn pizza with a cheesy crust.

The health statistics speak for themselves. According to the British Nutrition Foundation, a plate of spaghetti bolognese - far from the healthiest pasta dish - contains 516 calories, 6g sugar, 22g fat and 1.3g salt. By contrast, a vegetarian pizza has 864 calories, 9g sugar, 28g fat and 2.4g salt.

Part of the problem is that pizza has been so bastardised over the years. In Naples, where it originated, there are only three acceptable styles: the margherita, with tomato, mozzarella and basil; the margherita extra, with buffalo mozzarella; and the marinara, with just tomato, garlic and oregano. In addition, the way it is made is strictly controlled. The base must be shaped by hand to no more than 0.3cm thick in the middle and no more than 35cm in diameter. In the centre must be placed 60-80g of peeled and crushed tomato, spread in a spiral, 80-100g of mozzarella, and basil, before 4-5g of olive oil is added. It is then cooked in a wood-burning oven at 485C for 60-90 seconds.

Stick to this and you have a pretty healthy meal. The problem comes when you start adding all the extra cheese, sausage and ham - or, from Pizza Hut's speciality range, chicken, bacon and barbecue sauce.

“People say that pizza makes you fat. No, it doesn't,” says Giorgio Locatelli, the celebrated Italian chef. “S**t pizza makes you fat. Good pizza doesn't.”

The trouble, he says, is that pizza has been reduced to the level of a base commodity - it's just fodder. Pasta, on the other hand, is perfect fast food. “It is freer to interpretation,” he says. “It's a quick meal that you can make at home; there are thousands of recipes with everything from lobster to wind-dried tuna. You can use the produce of the land around you to create something special.”

They don't need persuading about the supremacy of pasta over pizza at Giancarlo and Katie Caldesi's three restaurants in Central London and Bray in Berkshire, either. This is Italian Mamas week, during which the mothers of six of their staff have flown in to put their traditional family recipes on the menu, ahead of the restaurant owners' new book. Needless to say, pasta features in all of them. Rina, from Genoa, is busy making pisarèi e fasò, a rustic dish of gnocchi with beans and tomatoes; Sabia, from Abruzzo, is cutting by hand the linguine for her “shepherds' pasta” with tomatoes and ricotta; Anna is making a typically Sicilian dish called gnocchetti tricolore with basil, mozzarella and tomato; Nicoletta, from Florence, dips a finger into the pasta water to check for seasoning before adding her tortellini filled with mashed potato, ragu, Parmesan and nutmeg; and Teresa is rolling out gnocculli, a thick, rustic pasta from Sicily, which she will serve with cuttlefish.

The noise of their chatter rises with every crank of the pasta machines, and it's not long before a friendly disagreement breaks out. Ninfa is making cappelletti filled with veal, pork and prosciutto. “With prosciutto?” asks one. “I'd never put prosciutto in cappelletti. It's too strong.” “I'd use it in a broth instead,” chips in another. (Locatelli tells a story of how no two Italians will ever agree on a recipe. Growing up in Lombardy, he was told in all seriousness by his father never to trust the family from No21 because “they put parsley in their minestrone”.)

Mamas Week came about after the staff began arguing over whose mother made the best spaghetti vongole. You wouldn't get the same debate over a Pepperoni Feast.

“They are all so fiercely protective of their mothers' recipes,” says Katie Caldesi. “It's lovely to watch the love that goes into it.” You see, pasta - it's the strand that binds a family together.

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