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A good, old-fashioned street festival can be just the thing a New Yorker needs as the seasons change. Well after Bikers For Bini at the Mall and shortly after the 41st Festa di Santa Rosalia wraps up on Monday, August 28 in Bensonhurst — that feast runs from 68th St. to 75th St. — so begins the build-up to the San Gennaro Festival in Manhattan's Li...

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Where's all the good Italian in Portland? This is the question every New Yorker asks when they arrive here—every Chicagoan, every Bostonian or San Diegan, people from cities with a Little Italy that still matters. But we have nowhere to send them. Portland has no neighborhood centered on Italian culture and food, and few Italian spots with tradit...

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Fine Italian restaurants are a reflection of the heritage and training of the chef, and Basilico Trattoria in Hopewell Borough is no exception. Chef and co-owner Giuseppe "Joey" Trani was born in Princeton, and at age 6 moved with his family to their hometown on the island of Ischia, Italy, located in the Bay of Naples. He grew up and went to culin...

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Nella Pizza and Pasta will open on Sept. 15 bringing real Neapolitan-style Italian pizza to Hyde Park — emphasis on "Italian." Owners Frank and Nella Grassano have gone to great lengths to make sure the pizza tastes like it would in Italy, which they claim is very different from what Chicagoans think of as pizza. “American sauce is so heavy, I can’...

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In today's paeans to old neighborhood restaurants, the motivations for keeping those beloved establishments alive are often taken for granted. The phrase "It's been in the family for decades" is its own explanation, a beat to hit without diving further into why the family cares, or what toll those decades have taken. The mere fact that an eatery ha...

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Chef Bruno Serato had a big grin on his face Tuesday afternoon as he ladled pasta into the bowls of more than 100 hungry children at the Boys and Girls Club in Huntington Beach. The meal was part of a ceremony marking the expansion of Caterina’s Club, Serato’s nonprofit that feeds needy children, to clubs in Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley, wh...

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Dining out is a different experience than eating at home. But a unique restaurant that serves its food family-style captures the fun and enthusiasm of an authentic Italian gathering. Buca di Beppo opened in 2014 and is in the Southridge Mall, 5300 S. 76th St., Greendale. The restaurant's name loosely translates to "Joe's Basement," stemming from it...

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Even when it’s not high season for all the various Saint-affiliated street feasts, visitors swarm the winding lanes of the red sauce-soaked North End for its Italian restaurants and quaint, historic streetscape. You could easily eeny-meeny-miny-moe your way through a dinner date among the tourist droves, but below, we’ve made some thoughtful dinner...

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I finally got to try a fantastic artisan olive oil from Italy that’s now available in West Virginia, thanks to two of the Charleston sisters whose family makes it. Luisa DiTrapano and Lia DiTrapano Fairless graciously offered to share a bottle with me in exchange for my “professional” opinion. Professional or not, this stuff is fantastic. Made on t...

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The chef who first launched the eponymous Donato Enoteca in downtown Redwood City in 2009, then Desco in Old Oakland in 2013, then a Peninsula salumeria and wine bar, Cru, in 2016, will open a Berkeley restaurant in late September. For this venture, Donato & Co., he is partnering with fellow Italian chef and friend Gianluca Guglielmi, formerly the...

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