Restaurant Only Serves Meals Lovingly Made by Grandmas From Around the World

Everybody knows that there is nothing quite like grandma’s cooking.

That’s why Jody Scaravella created a restaurant that is only run entirely by grandmothers.

Every day of the week at Enoteca Maria on Staten Island, New York City, a grandmother from a different country takes charge of the team and creates a menu based off of her home nation. The “nonnas” – which is Italian for “grandmother” – come from all over the world. From Sri Lanka, to Peru, to Ireland, to Greece, to Russia; every single one of the women on the 30-person team take turns playing lead chef.

Jody first became inspired to create the restaurant after he lost both his sister and mother in a short span of time. Aching for a matriarchal connection in his life, he got the idea to create a place that could specifically play host to the love and wonders of classical grandmother cooking.

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“When I opened the Enoteca, I was really grief-stricken,” says Jody. “It was comforting to have these grandmothers cooking in the kitchen. You know, the would pinch my cheek or say ‘do you wanna try this’, and at that point I realized that what we were doing was much bigger than I thought it was going to be. When you walk through the restaurant – and you really listen to the people you pass by – they’re talking about their mothers or talking about their grandmothers.”

“It kind of evokes a trip down memory lane.”

(WATCH the video below)

 

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