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Bakery Square is getting a little taste of big Burrito. The restaurant group plans to open AVP, an extension of its Alta Via brand, this fall in the East Liberty development. The company also runs Mad Mex, Casbah, Kaya, Eleven, Soba and Umi. Inspired by the cuisine and lifestyle of California’s wine country, the new spot will serve more casual Ital...

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Following in the footsteps of former Italian Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Claudio Scotti, who also trained under late and great Team Italy pitching coach Bill Holmberg and signed with the Bucs franchise in 2016, 16-year-old Azzurrini pitcher Alessandro Ercolani is headed to the Pirate City state-of-the-art training facility in Bradenton, Florida nex...

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Italian singer Andrea Bocelli is bringing his tour to Pittsburgh this winter. After a year of Bocelli’s live-streamed performances, he’s taking his live show to the U.S. His “Believe North American Tour” will stop at PPG Paints Arena on Dec. 4. Tickets will go on sale May 3 at 10 a.m. It’s the fourth show announced at PPG Paints Arena in the recent...

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During the spring of 1991, when the Pittsburgh Penguins defied the NHL betting sites and won the first Stanley Cup in franchise history, two netminders of Italian descent were unsung heroes of the victory. Yes, Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and Paul Coffey were the leaders of that Cup run, but without the goaltending of Tom Barrasso and the pinch hit...

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Located on the top, flat part of Verona, Penn. — running parallel to the main street, about one-half mile away — was Second Street where I grew up.  The topography made it special, but more notably, it was all of the hustle and bustle in this mixed Italian, German, Croatian, Irish and Polish neighborhood that made it shine. As youngsters, we put up...

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When Pittsburghers hear “that’s amore,” they probably think of the classic Dean Martin song or maybe former Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli, who used the ballad as his walkup music and later in a sketch where he provided love advice for fans at PNC Park. Here’s another potential association: “That’s Amore” is a film shot around the Pittsburgh ar...

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Chef Steve Martorano has brough his new Martorano's Prime to Rivers Casino, building on his collection of restaurants in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where his Cafe Martorano has operated for 30 years. Martorano's Prime will be his first Italian-American steakhouse, featuring  a menu of prime cuts of beef and other staples...

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Once upon a time, in the spring of 1911, a 14-year-old boy embarked on the ship Madonna from Naples, Italy. Per the instructions of his mother Francesca, his destination was Ellis Island, America. Luigi was never to see his siblings, his parents nor his homeland again. The combination of desperation and dreams, plus the promise that America held fo...

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THEY BROUGHT THEM IN SUITCASES and in trunks, tucked into the corners of boats and, later, on airplanes. Seeds that became rapini, cardoons, artichokes, cucuzza squash. Cuttings from knobby grape vines that flourished into backyard arbors. And, above all, bits of stick that grew into fig trees. Starting in the late 1800s, when Italian immigrants po...

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Every time Paola Corso’s grandmother saw a church, she made the sign of the cross. Corso adopted her grandmother’s tradition when she crossed a bridge over one of the three rivers in Pittsburgh: “In the name of the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and the holy Ohio, amen," became Corso’s personal prayer. In Vertical Bridges (Six Gallery Press), a new co...

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