Enoteca Maria – Delicious Traditional Italian Food

After our time at the New Amsterdam Market for A Cider Revival, we headed down to catch the ferry to Staten Island for an early evening meal at Enoteca Maria. We’ve been wanting to go there for a while now, and when it became clear that we’d be close to the SI ferry that afternoon, heading over to Enoteca Maria seemed like a great idea.

I first heard about this place from NY State Senator Diane Savino (she represents part of both southern Brooklyn and neighboring Staten Island) – she mentioned it in an interview, explaining that it’s an Italian restaurant where the food is cooked by a different Italian grandmother each night. Each woman brings her lifetime of cooking experience, knowledge, and familiarity with her regional specialities to the restaurant. This is a very unusual setup for a restaurant, but an intriguing and successful one.

We knew we had to try it at some point… but how to get there without a car?!? Fortunately, there is a way – by ferry and foot.

So much of Staten Island requires a car to get around it, at first we thought that Enoteca Maria would be inaccessible to those without a car (I’ve lived in NY for 10 years without owning a car). Thankfully, the restaurant is only a short walk from the ferry station on Staten Island. That makes it extremely easy to get to.

By the way, the Staten Island Ferry is also free, and gives you a terrific view of the NYC Harbor – views of the Statue of Liberty, Governor’s Island, and Ellis Island are particularly cool. If you come to NYC for a visit, consider taking the ferry for an extremely economical way to see that part of the city.

The space was not what I was expecting, but I liked it very much. I was expecting more of a trattoria atmosphere, but it makes sense that it’s more like a wine bar, since “enoteca” means “wine library”. It has a modern, sleek look, with a dining area on the left and in the front, and a bar on the right; I believe there are about 35 seats available at the restaurant.

Our cook for Sunday evening was Nonna Elvira from Palermo. Palermo is on the north coast of Sicily.

We were served this plate of antipasti shortly after we arrived. It was lovely, full of late summer/early fall flavors.

I ordered a glass of wine for the evening, a pinot grigio, my favorite summer wine (I’m trying to keep the warm weather here as long as possible!). The owner handpicks all the wines, which are all from Italy. Later in the meal, T had a Tappeto Volante, a blonde lager. It’s brewed by the Thedy family in Biella (near Milan), who have been brewing beer for four generations. It was delicious and came in a fun glass – I love its shape.

We ordered a couple of things – a plate of burrata and a baked stuffed squash blossom. Sadly, they were out of burrata, so we chose what I think of as a deconstructed caprese salad – tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil. First, the salad was incredible – late summer flavors at their finest. The tomatoes were sort of teardrop shaped – very elegant – and the mozzarella balls were very fresh. Some fresh basil was added and it was all mixed together with a lovely, fruity extra virgin olive oil, slightly warmed. I absolutely loved the flavor of the oil and the whole dish

The baked stuffed squash blossom was also good – inside the blossom was a savory risotto with bits of melon in it. I loved the savory and sweet mix in this dish.

Next year I’m going to totally do something like this with the squash blossoms in my garden.

The next thing we ordered was some pasta – fettucini with a meat ragu, made with sausage, ground veal, and ground pork. However, before the pasta came out, we were presented with a bowl of autumn minestrone and some artichokes, compliments of the restaurant. What a nice surprise! Both dishes were amazing, beautiful, incredibly tasty.

The minestrone was nice and thick (I prefer soups that are thicker rather than thinner), made with carrots, potatoes, broccoli and zucchini, in a rich tomato broth. We ended up taking some of the minestrone home, and it was delicious for lunch the next day.

The artichokes were incredible – they had a nice crust on them, which made them both sweet and savory. I was lucky that T does not like artichokes – more for me! I felt like a woman possessed eating them, they were that good.

I must admit, though – I had never eaten artichokes this way (I usually boil them and eat them – leaves and heart – dipped in a spicy cream cheese sauce), so I was trying to figure out how to handle them. The owner saw my confusion and showed me how to eat them! That made it easy to inhale them, basically. Soooo good.

The pasta arrived and it was gorgeous.

The peas were a nice touch along with the slow cooked meat sauce. I love this kind of sauce. The pasta – likely homemade – was also light and a joy to eat. I do not eat a lot of pasta these days, so it is so nice to have such good quality pasta when I do – it was a real treat.

We decided to end the meal with a cappuccino (served with Sambuca) and a slice of Italian cheesecake. These cheesecake was flavored with Nutella, so it had the chocolate and hazelnut going on. We took part of it home, too, as the serving was more than enough for two people.

I prefer Italian style cheesecake to American style. It tends to be lighter, and I really like the texture of the ricotta.

Overall, it was an excellent meal, and I would go back gladly. Next time I’ll try some of their offal dishes – things like kidneys, liver, and sweetbreads are usually on the menus. I could have ordered Capuzzelle, too: “Half of a sheep’s head stuffed with breadcrumbs, rosemary and garlic then baked in red wine.” On a tamer note, the whole branzino sounded amazing, too.

We caught this view on the way back to the ferry:

That tall building in the middle is One World Trade Center (1 WTC, formerly known as the Freedom Tower), still under construction.

I can’t wait to go back to Enoteca Maria. I had such a great experience there, and I love the variety of dishes on their menu. I love that they serve traditional, regional specialties there, and that the menu is both familiar and challenging, depending on how you look at it.

The women cooking in the kitchen love what they do, and it shows. They have complete autonomy over what goes on the menu, and of course the dishes are based on what’s in season. The owner, Joe Scaravella, is a gardener, and is involved with Numina Biodynamic Microfarm, a biodynamic farm – the only one – on Staten Island. My understanding is that some of the food grown in his garden finds its way to the kitchen at Enoteca.

Many thanks to our awesome servers, who were terrific. Thanks to Nonna Elvira for an awesome meal. And thanks to Joe Scaravella, for creating this wonderful place.

Enoteca Maria
27 Hyatt Street
Staten Island, NY 10301
718-447-2777 | http://www.enotecamaria.com/
Open Wed-Sun 3pm till closing