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Many fondly remember Mama Rosa’s Slice of Italy on North Rampart Street. Its heyday began in 1982 when People magazine reported it had some of the best pizza in the country. The building was an anomaly in the French Quarter, with a midcentury modern façade. Now it's even more of a contrast. With a new contemporary façade and interior, the main buil...

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Pizza Domenica opened its second location (3200 Banks Street; 504-459-2072; www.pizzadomenica.com) Sept. 13, taking over the former Echo’s Pizza site at the corner of Banks and South Lopez streets in Mid-City. The new location shares the same food menu as the original Magazine Street restaurant, including garlic knots, wood-roasted cauliflower and...

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Lena Prima, the daughter of renowned New Orleans bandleader, trumpeter and vocalist Louis Prima, remembers when her dad used to perform "Jump Jive An' Wail" and "Just A Gigolo" at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans' French Quarter. She wasn't old enough to attend the shows in the early 1970s, but today she holds court crooning at the hotel's iconi...

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Vincent Circello was born in New York City, but found himself living in northern Italy when World War 2 broke out. "I saw German troops coming through our town, gather all the young folks, and take them somewhere," recalled Circello. "A lot of them never came back, never seen them. We ran on top of the roof so they wouldn't get my brother and I bot...

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The Elenian Club welcomed its 2019-20 president, Maria Villafranco, with a recent luncheon at II Tony's Restaurant. The club, celebrating its 85th year, has chosen ACCESS Pregnancy, a Catholic charity of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, as its charitable organization this year. The club is a philanthropic group of women that are of Italian descent o...

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Pizza lovers can be picky. There’s the style of crust, the specific topping combinations. A new pizzeria in downtown New Orleans now brings a different kind of pizza, and a different approach to ordering. Bonci Pizza opened Thursday in the Warehouse District. It’s part of a chain, though one with links straight back to Rome, where founder Gabriele...

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If you’re of a certain age, you know Louis Prima's songs and wild on-stage antics from TV or Las Vegas.  If you’re younger, you know his songs recorded by younger artists like David Lee Roth and Brian Setzer or in TV commercials. Others know him as the singin’, swingin’ voice of King Louie in Disney’s animated film The Jungle Book. One thing’s for...

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“On warm summer nights, the violins would play as horse-drawn carriages pulled up to the fashionable ice cream parlors on Palermo’s waterfront. Elegant ladies and gentlemen, many from Sicily’s royal family, would step out and sit down to their favorite dessert of lemon ice, spumoni or cassata. Inside the kitchens, young boys – among them, Angelo Br...

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Former McNeese All-American Erika Piancastelli reached one of her lifelong goals last weekend by helping her Italian National team qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after defeating Great Britain5-0 at the WBSC Softball Europe/Africa Qualifier in Utrecht’s, Netherlands. “It still hasn’t hit me yet, it doesn’t feel real,” Piancastelli said. “...

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The New Orleans Pelicans announced today that the team has signed free agent forward Nicolò Melli. Per team policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed. Melli, 6-9, 235, joins the Pelicans after a successful 12-year professional career in Europe with stops in Italy (Reggiana, Olimpia Milano, VL Pesaro), Germany (Brose Bamberg) and most recently Tu...

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