Maspeth Italian eatery reintroduces chef to SW Queens
We used to have a favorite Italian restaurant, tucked away in an obscure part of Glendale. La Tavernetta had everything — great food, modest prices and warm hospitality. It had the added cachet of being far enough off the beaten track that you had to know about it to know about it. Gradually those in the know told those not in the know, an...
Morso’s Modern Family: Five Years Old, but Decades in the Making
It seemed as though the entire Sutton Place neighborhood had gathered at Morso on a recent Tuesday evening. The contemporary 95-seat restaurant, lined with vintage 1950s-style graphics, was packed with couples, groups of friends, families and a handful of solo diners. They sat in the white-tablecloth dining room and at the hammered-copper...
Nonnas cooking up comfort on Staten Island
When you're looking for a comforting meal, there's nothing like grandma's home cooking. One Italian restaurant on Staten Island is bringing that concept to the dinner table by hiring dozens of grandmothers or nonnas, in their kitchen. At Enoteca Maria, nonnas from 12-15 different countries bring their home-style recipes to foodies from near an...
Magic&Pasta, quando la cucina italiana è lirica
Cresciuta a New York tra i sapori campani dei piatti della nonna, Caroline Chirichella è rimasta folgorata da un viaggio in Italia e, abbandonata la carriera di cantante d'opera, si è messa ai fornelli e ha fondato Magic&Pasta per far scoprire ai newyochesi tutta la magia della cucina italiana. La madeleine di proustiana memoria per Ca...
Alfresco, on the walls and on your plate
by Joanna DelBuono Magnificio, fantastico, molto buono. Marco Chirico, restaurateur extraordinaire and patron of the arts, has always advocated for education. In order to further the education of students at the Information Technology High School in Long Island City, the owner and chef of Marco Polo Ristorante commissioned the students in...
At Chatterbox 54, Bustling Italian Space and Relaxed Italian Pace
The tables at Chatterbox 54 are a bit larger than is usual, making the typical balancing act at most restaurants, where space for both an entree and a bread plate can be hard to find, unnecessary. This creates more comfortable dining, but intimate chats aren't easy. No matter. Calling out across the table, or even across the room, is part of the fu...
Restaurants Where the Italian Family Tradition Endures
A linebacker for the Green Bay Packers understood exactly why we love the enduring, family-run Italian restaurant. The October 1974 issue of Esquire magazine included a feature on where N.F.L. players liked to eat, in which that linebacker, Jim Carter, gave this description of a Chicago favorite: "Food keeps coming, and they're insulted if you don'...
110 Years of Spleen Sandwiches at Ferdinando's Focacceria
Paul's Focacceria opened in 1904, the same year the ice cream cone was invented and Cy Young threw the first perfect game. Paul's was located on a residential street just a few blocks away from the Brooklyn piers, and it served traditional Sicilian sandwiches to the local Italian community and Italian longshoremen clamoring for a taste of home. &n...
Sommelier Talk: Renzo Rapacioli of Barbetta
Few, if any, sommeliers working today have witnessed—and contributed to—the evolution of fine wining and dining in America as much as Renzo Rapacioli in his five-decade career. From his family bistro in the small Italian town of San Michele, Rapacioli, 72, would go on to manage the wine programs at some of the most illustrious restaurants in New Yo...
True Modern Italian, With a Splash of New York City
By Nadia Ghattas A Voce means a voice in Italian. It speaks of fine cuisine, impeccable service, and exquisite design. A Voce creates an exciting dining experience for its guests—true modern Italian, with a splash of New York City. This Michelin-rated restaurant is owned by the Marlon Abela Restaurant Corporation. The setting is exquisite...
Italian Two Ways
As the name suggests, Olana, which opened two months ago among the sooty gray office buildings along lower Madison Avenue, is a place of lofty, even romantic, ambitions. The restaurant is named for the Hudson River home of the nineteenth-century landscape painter Frederic Church, and so the windowless room is decorated with murals, some of them bac...
Miusa Wine Bar Brings New American Food With Italian Inspiration to Williamsburg
After traveling the United States, Gianni Andreini decided he was ready to make a change -- he wanted to pack up his life in Florence to start a new journey in New York. To make it happen, he teamed up with two Italian friends, Federico Bernocchi and Andrea Soldini, both of whom had been residing in the city for years. Together, the team d...