Last Thanksgiving a gift arrived that evoked warm memories.
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The youngest of nine children, Salvino grew up in the kitchen, learning at an early age to prepare food the Sicilian way. His mother loved to cook, even when that meant baking ten loaves of bread every other day. “I remember how I loved to watch her and play at doing just the same as she did,” Salvino says. “Little did mama and I know…we were preparing for the future.”
The restaurant began as a lunch spot in the L-shaped hallway of a building at 24 E. Chicago. “We had a few rough months in the beginning,” Salvino reflects. But word of mouth quickly spread, and soon their restaurant was transformed into a popular dinner place (a decade later it moved a half block east into the ground floor of a brownstone). Each night’s meal was the product of daylong preparations in the kitchen.
–Beth Fletcher McEachern
