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Somewhere in the middle of Italy, Karyn Korteling’s stomach ached. She needed food, any type. Korteling, who was pregnant, felt a “nauseous” hunger that prompted she and her husband to pull over at “this road-side dump.” Even though they didn’t understand anything on the menu and couldn’t find anyone who spoke a word of English, they walked in. Kor...

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The 2017 Festa Italiana in Syracuse has a new event: a meatball-eating contest. The organizers have invited several local media members to participate, according to Ginnie Lostumbo. Morning radio hosts for 93Q Ted Long and Amy Robbins will emcee and judge, Lostumbo said. The contest will be at 12:30 p.m. on the first day of the festival, which runs...

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Spicy hot tomato oil. That was all we knew about Pastabilities before our recent Wednesday evening visit, but it was enough to make us look forward to dinner there. A friend had given us a jar of the restaurant's invention two years before, and it was everything we love about Italian food: deeply flavorful, spicy, rich and versatile. We only hoped...

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Things to know about Fabio's Antica Cucina, which opened in downtown Syracuse on Wednesday. The pizza oven - and all the flour used in it - comes from Italy. All the pasta, bread and gnocchi are handmade. The "priestchoker" pasta, a dough enriched with ricotta and herbs, gets its name from Fabio Santalucia's home village in Italy, where once upon a...

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Fred Grimaldi, whose restaurants on Erie Boulevard helped set the standard for Italian dining in Central New York, died on Monday, according to his daughter. Grimaldi, 78, had been receiving treatment for lung cancer, and an operation to remove a lung went well, Rita Grimaldi said this morning. On Monday, he died unexpectedly after complications fr...

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To paraphrase an old saying, you can't swing a cat in Syracuse without hitting an Italian restaurant. Decades of Italian immigration to the area resulted in an abundance of Italian and Italian-American restaurants throughout the city. Many are good and a few are excellent. Others are not. So, when John Vigliotti announced that Peppino's Neopolitan,...

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Since Peppino's Neapolitan opened in Armory Square in May 2015, it's been a different kind of pizza place. No "New York style" slices: It's offered whole pizzas, built to order, cooked Italian-style in a brick-lined oven for a soft, light and airy crust. Now the restaurant at 409 S. Clinton St. is doing something different again: It's expanding wit...

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My congratulations to Mike Fiore, the Maryland winemaker who received the lifetime achievement award at the Eastern Wineries Exposition in Syracuse, N.Y., on Tuesday. Fiore and his wife, Rose, have turned their namesake winery in Pylesville into one of the region's best. If you want to taste excellent red wine made in an Old World style, make Fiore...

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By Emily Nichols   On Tuesday evenings during the warm summer months, Sharkey's Bar and Grill is bursting with activities ranging from volleyball to trivia. The main event at this Liverpool bar, however, is a sport where you and your friends can socialize in an open field while beer gets delivered on golf carts.   It's a sport wh...

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By Chuck D'Imperio October is Italian-American Heritage Month, but it shouldn't just be celebrated on Columbus Day. Upstate New York is home to a large population of Italian families. In fact, New York State has the largest population of Italian-Americans than any other state except New Jersey.   Even the small city of Rome, N.Y., has a pop...

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