Like many businesses, Café Italia in Pittston struggled during the height of COVID-19. Restaurants were disappointingly shut down for weeks, offering just take-out and curbside service. Thankfully, that’s changed as guidelines have been altered since the start of summer. Now, it’s getting “better by the day,” according to Alicia Marranca, who recen...

Joel Piedra spent most of his career at Sabatino’s, starting at the beloved Old Irving Park restaurant as a teenager and working his way up to become the chef for 30 years until it closed in 2018. Now, Piedra is striking out on his own. He is set to open his own restaurant, Avvio American Italian Kitchen, later this month in Irving Park alongside h...

Italian born-and-raised restaurateur Sante Calandri was not about to let a pandemic stop him from opening his new restaurant, Ports of Italy, in Rockport last week. With a sister property in Boothbay Harbor, he’d always had his eye on the Midcoast and when the Helm restaurant came up for sale, he jumped on the opportunity. For the last year, he set...

Gios Italian Kitchen is finally ready to open in Myrtle Beach. Gios, whose original location in Pawleys Island on Rasheed Land, is set to open its second such restaurant Tuesday at 7915 N Kings Highway in a building near Publix Super Market that used house an Applebees. The business had previously planned to open in April or May before being delaye...

As each New Jersey summer comes to a close, one sure thing that takes away the sting from saying goodbye to hot, sunshine-filled days is attending a San Gennaro Festival. This celebration, lasting 11 days in Manhattan and with smaller-scaled celebrations in our state, is a food-fest of Italian flavor. Peppers and sausage and zeppolis reign supreme...

Amid the pandemic, a popular Italian restaurant opened its third location in Bay Shore this month. Butera's, which has a locations in Sayville and Woodbury, opened its latest eatery on 8 Third Avenue on Sept. 1. Owner Martin Butera, who opened the new restaurant alongside his wife, Laurie Butera; his brother, Gary Butera; his partner, Nick Zografo...

Mission Point’s fine-dining Italian restaurant Chianti is set to open for the season this weekend under the direction of the resort’s new executive chef, Adrian Diday. The late-season opening means fall travelers will be able to make reservations for a specially-curated, five-course prix fixe menu. Some of the options include oysters, zucchini frit...

If you frequented the Macayo’s restaurant on West Sahara and have grown curious about the Italian eatery that has taken its place, get ready for a wildly different experience. The 8,000-square-foot space is completely unrecognizable from its former life as a popular Mexican restaurant—still open and airy but much more refined. Done up in bright but...

Synthesis and simplicity for Cooking, the greatest refinement consists in synthesis and simplicity. This phrase by H. De Toulouse Lautrec represents the thought of the father of all Italian Chefs Gualtiero Marchesi then and of Michele Casadei Massari now, becase we have to watch back to the tradition, then forget it and aim to the new tradition of...

An Ulster County restaurant that temporarily closed due to COVID-19 came back with a bang, remodeling their store and adding a market of over 300 Italian products. Palizzata on 298 Wall St. in Kingston celebrated its reopening and expansion with a ribbon-cutting, attended by local officials and chamber of commerce members clad in protective masks,...