I’m not sure if anyone has commented on this but adding oil to the water for boiling the pasta is generally not advised, and also not what the Italians do. It may not be as crucial here since you aren’t dealing with a sauce, but it tends to prevent the pasta from absorbing the flavours of the sauce. And if you are adding oil to prevent the pasta from sticking to each other, you simply have to stir the pasta a bit in the beginning. Also, you can also consider putting enough salt into the boiling water such that it tastes almost like sea water – you don’t have to salt the pasta after this, and is again what the Italians do.

The other thing is I found out that restaurants don’t have the garlic sliced very thinly (emincé) instead of diced simply because it looks better. It actually tastes better because your garlic is more uniformly cooked and the texture works better overall, but I suppose some people prefer their garlic to taste a bit more raw. I personally don’t prefer having the garlic taste raw as I like the garlic to have a bit of sweetness.

Finally, when I do an aglio olio with prawns, I tend to saute the prawns separately because if you do it with the garlic, you risk burning the garlic or having it become slightly bitter (again, a matter of preference). As aglio olio is such a simple dish, I think you need to really nail the few ingredients in it!

One other tip is to add some of the water used to boil the pasta into the pan along with the pasta. The starch in the pasta water helps to give a somewhat creamy or smooth texture to the pasta, and helps get you nearer to the type you get in Italian restaurants. I take the pasta out of the pan only after the pasta water has evaporated – don’t worry about the pasta being overcooked and no longer al dente. If you are really a food nazi, you may even wanna boil the prawn heads in some water to get a seafood broth to add in with the pasta water – this gives your pasta that extra somethin’ somethin’ – this is what many Italian restaurants actually do; they add in seafood stock to give it that umami-ness you never get with home-cooked pasta.

The final tip is to add a knob of butter for maybe a minute or two before you take the pasta out of the pan. Do remember to adjust the amount of olive oil and salt (if you use salted butter) if you decide to do this, as you don’t want your pasta to be too oily or too salty. I got this tip from the restaurant I used to work at. I’m not sure if this is what the Italians do though.

Hope this helps!