Why are there so many Italian restaurants on Long Island?
That almost a fifth of Long Island's 8,000 restaurants identify themselves as Italian is no great mystery to Guy Lombardi, whose family owns Mamma Lombardi's and Lombardi's Market in Holbrook, and Lombardi's by the Sound in Port Jefferson. "There are a lot of Italian restaurants here because there are a lot of Italians here," he said.
In fact, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures, Long Island is home to more people of Italian ancestry -- 27 percent of the population in Nassau and Suffolk -- than any other ethnic group.
But if demographics were the only factor, then the second- and third-most popular types of restaurant on Long Island would be Irish and German. Clearly something else is at work. "It's an accessible cuisine," offered John Durkin, chef-owner of Trattoria Diane in Roslyn. "People can feel intimidated by French cooking, but they feel connected to Italian."
The connection is all the stronger for Italian-Americans who seek echoes of their childhood when they eat out. Durkin can't count the number of times he's heard "My mom made great meatballs, and this restaurant's meatballs taste like my mom's." Ditto grandma's "Sunday gravy" and Aunt Annie's braciole.
But here's the problem: What many Long Islanders were served by their mothers and grandmothers is not, strictly speaking, Italian food, but rather an adaptation. Giorgio Meriggi, co-owner of Stresa in Manhasset and Stresa East in Woodbury and a native of Emilia-Romagna, has grown accustomed to hearing Americans refer to veal Parmesan, chicken scarpariello and spaghetti and meatballs as "real Italian food." "Don't get me wrong," he said. "Those are wonderful dishes. But they are not Italian."
What is the difference between Italian food in Italy and Italian food on Long Island?
In Italy, there really is no such thing as "Italian food." While there are common ingredients (pasta, olive oil) and principles (simplicity, seasonality) the cooking varies widely from one region to the next. Most of the Italian food in the United States -- and on Long Island -- is a hybrid Italian/ American cuisine that arose when Italians, most of them from the Southern-Italian countryside, arrived in the New York area.
In their new urban home, these immigrants had to adapt their recipes to the lack of many traditional ingredients (e.g. good olive oil, fresh tomatoes, aged Italian cheese) and the abundance and relative affordability of others (red meat, chicken).
What characterizes Italian-American cooking?
"Back in Italy," recalled Lombardi, "my mother would make a parmigiana with eggplant or zucchini and a little Pecorino Romano." The traditional vegetable "parmigiana" was a humble casserole of pan-fried vegetable slices and grated, aged cheese. Here it was transformed into veal Parmesan, featuring a veal cutlet that would have been considered gigantic in the Old Country, a long-cooked sauce made from canned, imported tomatoes, and a blanket of melted mozzarella cheese, a fresh cheese which could be made from American milk. "Everybody likes melted cheese," said Lombardi.
Another hallmark of the Italian-American kitchen is the generous portions. Guy Lombardi acknowledges that servings at his restaurant are three to four times bigger than they would be in Italy. "I have customers who go to Italy, then they come to Mamma Lombardi's and say, 'Thank God we're back -- the portions there are so small.'"
How did Italian restaurants evolve here?
Many of the first Italian restaurants on Long Island were family-run establishments serving what gradually became a new regional Italian cuisine -- the region being the Northeastern United States.
In 1968, the Lombardis embarked on a journey that had already been taken by countless Italian families since the turn of the 20th century. Five years after moving from Avellino, near Naples, to Long Island, Mamma's children opened a pizzeria which expanded and moved to its current location in 1979. According to Guy, "the menu at Mamma Lombardi's hasn't really changed since we opened."
John Durkin, an Irish-American born in Queens and raised on Long Island, recalls the culinary shift that occurred in the 1980s. "You started to have more Continental restaurants that blended Italian and French. There would be pasta on the menu, but also escargot." These restaurants, he said, "took a lot of pride in being able to serve whatever the customer ordered, regardless of what was on the menu."
Catering to the customer's every (reasonable) wish certainly describes Meriggi's approach. First at Navona in Great Neck (1985 to 2001) and then at Stresa (1992) and Stresa East (2001) he and his partners made this their culinary credo. "Here the menu doesn't mean much," he said. "If we have the ingredients, we will make any dish."
During the 1990s, Durkin witnessed a moving away from that whatever-the-customer-wants approach. He and his wife, Diane Margaritis, opened the French-Mediterranean Diane's in 1994, but in 1997 they renamed it Trattoria Diane to reflect its Italian bias. Durkin's approach to his adopted cuisine is largely philosophical. Instead of sticking to specific recipes, he aspires to the overarching goals of seasonality and locality -- and sometimes that means saying "no" to a customer. "I have a very small kitchen and I change the menu weekly -- sometimes daily. If someone wants scallopini I may not have any in the kitchen."
So what does "Italian restaurant" mean on Long Island?
Long Islanders evince widely diverse notions of what an Italian restaurant should be. And restaurateurs have complied -- there is an establishment to suit every notion. What they all share is a commitment to providing a setting for culinary nostalgia.
Traditional Italian-American places such as Mamma Lombardi's or Sergio's in Massapequa or King Umberto's in Elmont bring Long Islanders back to their childhoods -- whether they are reminded of their own mothers' cooking, or of dinners out that the whole family enjoyed at a favorite restaurant.
At Stresa -- or at La Pace with Chef Michael in Glen Cove, or at Benny's in Westbury -- patrons relive the kind of elegant cuisine and graceful service that Italian restaurateurs brought to Long Island and made their own.
Many of the newer restaurants such as Trattoria Diane or 18 Bay in Bayville or Caruso's in Rocky Point are run by non-Italians, chefs who discovered Italian cooking as young adults and fell in love with a centuries-old tradition that seemed unmarked by supermarkets and fast food. Their connection is to a longed-for past neither they -- nor their customers -- have experienced.
