Scampi by itself, is also a dish of shrimp served in garlic butter and dry white wine, served either with bread, or over pasta or rice, although sometimes just the shrimp alone. Most variants of the shrimp scampi come on pasta.The word scampi is often construed as that style of preparation rather than an ingredient, with that preparation being called shrimp scampi, and with variants such as chicken scampi.campi is the Italian plural of scampo, Nephrops norvegicus. In English, scampi is used as singular, plural, or uncountable. The Italian word may be derived from the Greek κάμπη kampē (bending or winding).