Every Sunday morning as a young boy, Gian Piero Mazzi was awakened to the sound of pots and pans clanging to life in his mother’s kitchen. “She would start cooking at 9 a.m. Every Sunday I heard that sound, and I’ll never forget it,” says Piero, chef and owner of Piero’s Corner in Herndon, Va. “Food was a big part of our family, and my mother’s love of cooking had a tremendous influence on me.” Despite his parent’s suggestion that Mazzi…
Keeneland sits resplendent in the Kentucky bluegrass, exuding old-world grandeur and timelessness— a jewel in the world of Thoroughbred racing. Queen Elizabeth once visited the horses there, and many other dignitaries and horse racing royalty have passed through the richly appointed venues, watched the beautiful Thoroughbreds race around an immaculate oval track, or have bid at auctions where legendary race trainers met their future Thoroughbred stars. And at the heart of the Keeneland experience, which began with its inception in 1936, is…
Emshika Aberini is hard not to admire. The Thai native, who possesses both sparkling charm and business-school savvy, has parlayed her dream to own her own restaurant, and to honor her sister’s memory, into a classic success story that has garnered her headlines and accolades for all she has achieved. The owner and chef of Chang Thai Café in Littleton, N.H. has infused her homespun recipes, learned from her family in Thailand, into a thriving restaurant, so notable, that the pioneering…
Eight years after opening its doors in the burgeoning city of Portland Maine, the Kon Asian Bistro has remained relevant in the face of a restaurant revolution. The once-quiet restaurant scene now brims over with hundreds of pubs, diners, and eateries. It has become such a mecca that the Boston Globe newspaper declared in 2014 that a “boom” was taking place in the small city. And what was once an undiscovered fishing community was suddenly a big draw for foodies…
From a humble, even checkered past, to reinvention as one of the finer southern-fare restaurants in Beaumont, Texas, Suga’s Deep South Cuisine & Jazz Bar lights up the downtown with old-fashioned cream sauces and crawfish, and the cool strains of live jazz. For the past 11 years, the fine-dining restaurant has paid homage to its past – Suga’s website in fact lays out the history of the 1914 red brick building it inhabits, from days as a 1940s barbershop to…
The Peter Shields Inn sits like nobility on the shore of Cape May, N.J. Steps away from the beach, where the sounds of sunbathers and seagulls mingle on salty air, presides the grand, white Georgian Revival in all its 109-year-old glory. With a white-pillared grand entrance and back doors that open onto a terrace for dining, the summer home of turn-of-the-century businessman Peter Shields lives on as a romantic destination restaurant and inn. Boasting nine beautifully appointed guest rooms and…
A white-tablecloth, destination restaurant in Staten Island, which serves classic Italian fare to celebrities and special-occasion crowds, recently took their culinary vision to the shopping mall circle. In January, the elegant Angelina’s Ristorante opened a second, more casual location near the Staten Island Mall. The goal of the new Angelina’s Kitchen, says owner Vincent Malerba, is to bring the same high-end quality to pizza, chicken Parmesan and other popular dishes served up in a high-traffic location populated by chain restaurants. The 6,000…
An iconic, eight-sided building where farmers and butchers hocked their wares in the late 1800s, only to stand dormant years later like a brick-and-mortar time capsule, re-opened its doors last month in a flourish of optimism driven by an award-winning restaurateur. Frits Huntjens, a James Beard Award finalist, and one of the visionaries behind the effort to restore and revive the 1879 octagonal farmers market building in the heart of Petersburg, Va., has been smiling ear-to-ear since he opened the…
Six friends from Italy with a passion to share culinary treasures of their northern homeland, made famous by Barolo wine and truffles, recently flung open the doors to their first American restaurant. Last February, far from the soaring Alps of Turin, the warm and rustic San Carlo Osteria Piemonte restaurant took its place beneath the towering skyline of Manhattan’s SoHo district to pay homage to the sophisticated tastes of an important northwest city. “Turin is our hometown,” says Moreno Cerutti,…
When Hurricane Sandy swamped The Inlet Café in 2012, flooding the 49-year-old New Jersey eatery beneath five feet of water, the second-generation owners did what their parents had taught them to do in the face of disaster—they rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Like their parents had done in 1975 after a fast-moving fire leapt from a neighboring hotel and reduced the family business to rubble, siblings and co-owners Robin Lentz-Sundstrom and Douglas Lentz refused to be knocked…