My inspiration for Nina’s Trattoria came from my mother, Nina, and her mother, Nona Caterina. Growing up in my grandparents’ household in New Brunswick, New Jersey--just 32 miles south of Manhattan--I was treated to daily culinary delights. Holidays were the source of the most elaborately prepared meals. Menus consisted of fresh local produce and the best the butcher and fish market had to offer. Nonna was from the Mediterranean coastline village of San Pier Niceto, Province of Messina, Sicily where she lived on a small farm. She taught my mother how to bake bread, cook meals, design and sew her own dresses and coats and how to reach the hearts of her two sons and her husband, Joseph—through their stomachs of course!
Our menu at Nina’s consists of some family specialties, and it goes on to include recipes from other regions of Italy as well including: Calabria, Puglia, Campania, Abruzzo, Lazio, Roma, Tuscany, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont, Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia
Buon appetito! Nick Nastasi
