It's another weekend on Staten Island's summer social circuit, and during this next-to-last weekend of the season we landed in LaStrada Restaurant, a longstanding dining spot in New Dorp --  that originally opened as an espresso house back in the 1980s. According to LaStrada's current owner, Anthony Santisi, who came on board in 1987, LaStrada -- the Italian for the word "road" -- was originally named for the 1954 Academy Award winning Federico Fellini movie of the same name starring Anthony Quinn.

And interestingly, it was Santisi, a chef in his own right, who converted the espresso cafe into a dining spot offering classic Southern Italian cuisine, a lively, well appointed mahogany bar and cozy fireplace -- a stronghold in New Dorp that's managed to withstand the test of time. And in retrospect, perhaps the secret behind the success of LaStrada lies within Santisi's passion for fine dining and the restaurant business, where his priority has always been to provide authentic Italian dishes and impeccable service.