Nonna’s In The Kitchen!
As a foodie, I love this story: a great restaurant on Staten Island is run by Grandmas – which keeps their family recipes alive for generations to come!
Bravo Jody Scarvella, Owner Of Enoteca Maria On Staten Island!
Why am I telling you this? Because Vince Vaughn stars in a film that celebrates them!
More on the film in a moment, but first, let’s head to Staten Island for this incredible restaurant!
This restaurant kitchen is staffed completely by grandmothers – Nonnas! It was the vision of Jody Scaravella, who opened Enoteca Maria in 2007.
It was a unique concept to be sure: he hired exclusively Italian Nonnas, filling a personal void left by his own late grandmother.
The “Nonnas” Goe Worldwide!
Over the year, he expanded the concept to invite additional grandmothers from around the world to take turns cooking the foods they grew up with. Today, countries from Japan to Algeria are represented in the kitchen on a rotating schedule.
“You have two grandmothers every day,” Scaravella explained. “You always have an Italian Nonna, and every day, the featured kitchen changes.”
A “Nonnas of the World” calendar assigns each grandmother a monthly date in the kitchen. “Sometimes people call, and they want to know when the Greek nonna’s cooking,” he said. “But some people enjoy the surprise.”
And yes, you can get the cookbook with these classic family recipes! And their fame has increased even more!
Now, back to this guy:
There it is, Enoteca Maria – but now you have Vince Vaughn overseeing these “acting Nonnas”: Susan Sarandon, Talia Shire, Brenda Vaccaro and Lorraine Bracco – in a new film that tells the story of the restaurant!
Here is the trailer:
Vince plays Jody, and the star-studded cast digs into life in the kitchen…it’s a heartwarming film that is funny, poignant and will make you very hungry in the best way!
I love this story – keeping family recipes alive and letting these Nonnas, who have raised their families with longtime family recipes, take over the kitchen…terrific – I would love to go to this restaurant!
I have shared family recipes before: passed down for generations. Like this “Sunday Gravy” recipe!
It’s a classic Italian sauce aka “Sunday gravy” – and I got it from The Sopranos cookbook…click here to see just how delicious it is!
I also shared a recipe from Chef Rich Tremonto, who honored his mother by making a dish she learned to cook from HER mother…click here to see “Gloria’s Lasagna!”
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Let me know what you think of these “cooking Nonnas!”
Categories: Bite Eat Swallow, Bite! Eat! Repeat!, Chef memoirs, Cookbooks, Fine Dining, Food, Food Travel, Food Writing, Movies, Recipes, Restaurants, Travel, World's Wildest Food
Bite! Eat! Repeat! 
This looks like a terrific movie!!
It’s a lot of fun and tells the real story of how this restaurant came to be…it’s a love letter to food! Thanks for reading!
great! looking forward to it!
Note to self. Don’t watch the movie on an empty stomach! Ha, ha. Looks amazing.
Shared on Twitter for you, John. (I commented on the previous post about the film)
Best wishes, Pete.
Just watched this film and it was fantastic!
It was charming and warm and respectful to the women…they were all on my wife’s TV show “The Kelly Clarkson Show” and they had three of the real Nonnas on as well with the cast – it was wonderful!