Nothing in the world compares to a grandmother’s cooking. The flavors, the passion, the culture and, most importantly, the love. It’s as if each bite defies the laws of time and space, opening a delectable wormhole that takes you to the opposite side of the world, and back to earlier times.
One restaurant wants its customers to have this experience at every meal. And it all started with a simple advertisement placed in an Italian newspaper.
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Enoteca Maria, located in the St. George section of Staten Island, hired Italian grandmothers as chefs when it opened almost a decade ago. Hailing from different regions of the country, the “Nonnas” cook their own menus for hungry customers looking for a tasty meal with some nostalgia on the side.
In 2016, owner Jody Scaravella expanded the operation to the rest of the world and currently employs grandmothers from more than a dozen countries, including Pakistan, Nigeria, Algeria, Turkey, Belarus, Argentina, Japan, and the Dominican Republic, to name a few.
The "Nonnas of the World" also offer classes for those who want to learn the home cooks' generational culinary techniques.
Half the menu is permanently Italian, while the other half rotates between cuisines from almost every continent, the New York Times reports.
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The concept of hiring grandmothers over professionally trained chefs was born out of owner Jody Scaravella’s Brooklyn upbringing. His maternal grandmother, Nonna Domenica, was the head of the household and ingrained a strong culinary tradition into his family.
“She is the one who passed down to us her culture with, at its very heart, her culinary traditions,” Scaravella wrote on the restaurant’s website. “Growing up, I realized that my grandmother had been the repository of our family culture and identity. And I found out that, like her, millions of grandmothers all over the world pass down their heritage to their grandchildren.”
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As of 2015, more than 37% of New York City residents are foreign-born, according to the US Census Bureau.
More than 3 million foreign-born immigrants live in New York, more than any other city in the world, the Huffington Post reports. Presently, the Dominican Republic and China top the list of countries of origin. Italy ranks 17th. Of the five boroughs, Staten Island experienced the greatest increase in its foreign-born population at 36% between 2007 and 2011.
It’s unclear how much Enoteca Maria single-handedly impacted that boom.
Though Italian restaurants are nothing new in New York, Enoteca Maria is taking a staple of the city, reinvigorating its immigrant roots, and welcoming contributions from the rest of the world – all with a touch of love from Nonna.
It’s truly a global kitchen for global citizens.