Salvatore’s Steakhouse recently opened with little fanfare in Hamden’s Spring Glen neighborhood, but the news ripped through town like wildfire. It was fortunate that the kitchen and staff practiced extensively on friends and family before opening, because within just a few days Salvatore’s was fairly humming, even on so-called “slow” nights.
Salvatore’s owner, Victoria Ferraro, must have realized the restaurant was likely be busy from the get-go and would need to hit the ground running. You see, Victoria has a secret—she’s a third-generation Ferraro. Arguably New Haven “royalty,” the Ferraro family has been in the grocery business for over 70 years, tracing back to Salvatore, Sr. and wife Joan’s humble beginnings at Mohawk Market on State Street in 1952. Then, for almost half a century, Ferraro Foods operated on Grand Avenue, with the couple’s sons—Salvatore, Jr., John, Peter and Mark—joining their parents in running the business. Oldest son Salvatore, Jr., Victoria’s father, eventually became the company president, but sadly passed on in 2010. In spring of 2021, Ferraro’s Market moved to its current convenient quarters on North Haven’s Universal Drive next to Target, bringing with it its huge fan base. Victoria, oldest child of Salvatore, Jr. and Nancy, had to know Salvatore’s would have a built-in audience even before it opened.
The founders of Jam City Pizza, a new Detroit-style pizza concept in Hamden, knew they were up against thin-crust supremacy so close to New Haven.
But even as the Elm City was declared the “pizza capital of America” last year, Tyler Demora and James Woodward decided to add their version of the thick, square Michigan style to the area’s pizza offerings.
“We’re trying to get people to understand that there’s other really great pizza,” Demora said.
The business partners, who’ve been friends since childhood, opened Jam City within The Cellar at Treadwell in Hamden last November. They took over the performance venue’s kitchen, with a menu of red and white pan pizzas, salads and snacks like chicken wings and tenders, fried pickles and garlic pretzel knots.
Demora, a native of New Hartford, is a chef with more than 20 years of experience in the restaurant industry. His career has taken him to San Francisco and France, as well as closer to home in Providence and New Haven. He also owns and operates the Feelin’ Saucy food truck, which specializes in pasta dishes.
When the popular Venezuelan-meets-Mexican mashup, Mil Sabores, vacated their original brick-and-mortar at 2043 Fairfield Avenue and went onto opening a bigger restaurant further down the street, they left their digs to another tenant, even if it is for a limited run. Lao Cocina, a Laotian and Puerto Rican fusion spot, that’s mostly takeout, is filling out the rest of that lease. Created by the husband-and-wife team of April Khanthaphixay, her husband, Daniel Colon, and Daniel’s uncle Sergio, they’re mixing their respective cultures for a new kind of concept.
Bridgeport’s not-for-profit Green Village Initiative was founded in Westport in 2011. Several years later the decision was made to move GVI’s base of operations and programs to focus on the residents of Bridgeport, CT and has since incorporated values of racial equity, antiracismand food justice into its goals. The GVI runs three programs which consist of community gardens, youth leadership programs and The Reservoir Community Farm, a 1.7 acre educational farm in the heart of Bridgeport with over 47 plots for community gardeners to grow food for their families.
We had the opportunity to meet Eileen O’Reilly, who serves as a volunteer Board of Director as Chair of the Board. The former New Yorker and Vogue Magazine editor, told us all about the Green Village Initiative as we toured the farm on a warm day in late September. We wandered through rows of fruit, vegetables and flowers all being tended to by community members, as well as rows of wilder plants and greens with butterflies fluttering over the brightly colored flora and bees busily pollinating, their legs covered in brightly colored yellow dust.
Foolproof Brewing Company is excited to announce the grand opening of their second location in Bridgeport, CT with a brand new brewery, taproom, and kitchen located at 800 Union Avenue.
Trattoria A’Vucchella is the epitome of a hidden gem. Open for a tick over a decade, directly across the street from The Bijou Theater in Downtown Bridgeport, it might be one of the city’s best kept secrets if you’re not a local, and if you didn’t somehow discover it naturally.
“It’s a tough location, but we have a loyal following,” says co-owner Pasquale De Martino. “They all found us organically, and once they find us, they come back and from all over. I love the community here.”
Martino—who opened the restaurant back in 2014 with Jennifer Galletti and Thomas Bepko—was formerly the owner of a limoncello factory for 10 years in his birthplace of Sorrento, Italy before selling it and eventually getting into the villa renting business in Italy with Galletti.
The word “ferocity” is used to describe the small, but mighty, wildcat. While the cat is native to Africa and Eurasia, the name “Wildcat” has been floating around Hamden and it has nothing to do with an animal, but rather, a cocktail bar that’s hoping to capture you with its ferocity.
Both from Pawling, NY, Kris ended up in Connecticut working for the Barteca Restaurant Group and Shane, though he was originally pursuing a possible career as a lawyer, found himself bartending in New York City instead. Wildcat is brought to you by twin brothers, Kris and Shane McGowan, whose names you’ve definitely heard before as they’ve been in the industry near and far for well over a decade after they graduated college.
“I opened the West Hartford bartaco and it was a great learning experience to be somewhere that was sort of becoming corporate at the time,” Kris says. “Then I got the hell away from there because I didn’t want anything to do with corporate. It was a good structure, system, and rule that I learned a lot about. I started as a bartender, then moved up to bar manager, assistant general manager, and helped open Westport (bartaco) to train new managers.”
Just feet away from the Sacred Heart Discovery Science Center and Sacred Heart campus itself sits a row of food trucks and a wide shoulder where hungry eaters can park. Among the lineup, one small, silver truck takes its place there year-round, whether in cold, snow, heat or rain. Happily, I ventured to go see about Khemi’s Vegan Cuisine food truck.
CTbites is excited to be the Media Sponsor for an incredible dining event going down on June 22nd, DINNER ON MARKLE, “Cultivating Seeds of Community.”BUY TICKETS HERE
29 Markle Court, awarded “Best New Restaurant” at the 2023 “Crazies Awards” is taking the “Outstanding In The Field” concept and bringing that long communal table dining experience to the streets of downtown Bridgeport. This is going to be an unforgettable event you will not want to miss.
The community dinner, "Dinner on Markle," will be held Saturday June 22nd, 3-8PM and the experience will span the entirely of Markle Ct in front of the restaurant. Chef Damon Daye and Wesley Arbuthnot have created an evening filled with local artists, creative drinks, live music and a four-course dinner al fresco that will focus on the bounty the season has to offer from our local CT farms.
The evening will be set under the stars, surrounded by an exhibit of incredible community art brought to you by Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County.
“Cultivating Seeds of Community” will elevate local creativity, community, and art. A portion of the proceeds will benefit “The Green Village Initiative” and “The Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County.”
Kevin and Carole Rizzo are cooking up something unique in Hamden CT. It’s pizza, but not like the pizza we Nutmeggers are famous for. It’s a “Pizza Tub” and CT residents are loving this new take on Connecticut Pizza.
“As a young boy, I would help my grandmother cook Sunday dinner every weekend. We'd start a day early, on Saturday and make everything from scratch. I learned the importance of fresh, quality ingredients,” says Rizzo
.Now, in his 400 square foot storefront, Kevin and Carole have taken this passion for Italian cooking, and a little inspiration from the “Pizza Cupcake” made famous on Shark Tank- to create the Original Pizza Tub.
“The whole venture was my wife’s idea…She loves pizza,” says Kevin.
In perfecting the pizza making process, he was also given mentorship from local restaurateur and friend, Albert Zuncja, of Alberto’s Restaurant in Seymour.
So, what is a “Pizza Tub?” It’s a handheld, 4 -bite seasoned pizza crust baked with sweet tomato sauce, Monterey Jack cheese & filled w/ tastiness including: bacon, sausage, pepperoni & onion. Guests can walk in to the Hamden storefront and Rizzo will bake them to order, or you can bring home a frozen four-pack. You can also save time and order them ahead online as they do take 11 minutes to bake.
If last year’s article on Taco Guy was the first “movie,” Super Taqueria Las Salsas is the sequel that’s actually a prequel. I’ll explain.
Taco Guy’s owner, Adrian Hurtado—who for this I’m going to use his middle name, Christtian, because that’s what he goes by if you know him—introduced a group of us to his father, Gil Salvador Perez Hurtado, back in March of 2023 at his dad’s restaurant, Super Taqueria Las Salsas. Christtian, you see, wanted us to know where he came from, where he learned his hard-working ethic from, and to introduce us to carnitas, something that has been in the Hurtado Family since 1931 in the Mexican state of Michoacán, where their family is from, and is also the birthplace of carnitas.
“My grandfather, Salvador, started it, but in the restaurant industry, I’m second generation,” Christtian says.
Go up or down Bridgeport’s North Avenue roughly a mile or so before or after the Fairfield town line and you’ll notice a neon blue awning with an emoji-like sandwich logo paired with the words “The Torta Shop” printed on it.
What’s not new, however, are the owners. Mariella Garcia and her husband Jose Santiago previously owned the bodega since 2017. Around a year and a half ago, the couple decided to flip the concept into something different.
“We’re originally from Oaxaca, then we came to Norwalk, and my husband and I moved to Bridgeport in 2016,” Garcia says. “In 2017 we got the grocery store and thought about switching it up over the years and wanted to make a bigger change. We wanted to bring this to Bridgeport. And there are a lot of Mexican restaurants here, but we wanted to focus on tortas, Mexican sandwiches. Other places do it, but we want to be known as a tortarilla.”
After he gave the closed-to-the-public dining room a warm welcome on a summer Saturday in August, Damon Sawyer told diners that they were about to experience something rare.
“To my knowledge, this has never been done in Bridgeport before.”
Edwin Mondragon, who co-owns the popular Mexican – Venezuelan mashup Mil Sabores in Bridgeport, credits his mother’s mole as his first taste of the food service industry. He recalls memories of packing mom’s mole in plastic pint containers, filling up his backpack, and selling it, as a family, to customers and stores who sought out the homemade Mexican sauce.
“Mixing records is very similar to balancing tastes if you can imagine that. The lows of a record are like beets to me. That funk, the color of it. It’s a deep sound. You add shallots, it’s like a string session. That was a major component into my transition to being a chef. I knew what balancing sound was. Same thing as ingredients.”
A quote like that one could only come from a former musician, turned chef.
Park City Music Hall opened in 2020 in the Black Rock neighborhood of Bridgeport, after an extensive and beautifully executed renovation of what was once The Acoustic. The new team, the Torres family, also own neighborhood favorite, HarborView Market, situated just around the corner from the venue, where guests are often treated to live music, while enjoying a great casual seasonal breakfast and lunch menu. And let’s not forget their iconic chocolate chip cookies that always make the “best of” lists. The bottom line is, after 30 years in the business, the Torres folks know a thing or two about cooking and hospitality.
When they were offered the opportunity to reinvent and expand the beloved local music hangout, The Acoustic, they jumped in with what seemed like every hand in Black Rock. They created a spot that both increased the audience size and draw for the venue, but also amped up the experience with a new premium craft cocktail program and elevated bar menu, served Thursday through Sunday. Not only has Park City Music Hall become a spot to hear great local and national bands, but they are meeting the needs of hungry bar-goers, families, and food lovers, who come for dinner and their new…wait for it…BRUNCH!
The people demand tacos, and on October 15th at the Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater in Bridgeport, they shall receive tacos. And also margaritas. Naturally.
The 2022 Connecticut Taco and Margarita Festival at The Amp is available to anyone with $15 and dream to eat tacos, drink margs, see live wrestling from Adrenaline, maybe get their face painted, have access to shop vendors, test their courage at the hot sauce expo, and possibly gain a championship of their own at the taco eating contest.
There’s only one way to begin an article about a restaurant that bears the name RoadRunner, and that’s with very Looney Tunes-like MEEP, MEEP!
Now that we’ve gotten the silliness out of the way—for now—it’s time to dish on this Bridgeport newcomer.
RoadRunner Kitchen + Bar comes to the Black Rock neighborhood from the New Canaan Restaurant Group whose restaurants include Gates in New Canaan and Bruxelles Brasserie in South Norwalk.
RoadRunner, though, is the polar opposite of its sister restaurants in terms of its high energy, casual vibe that suits families as well as adults who simply want to kick it at the bar and crush a few tacos.
But make no mistake, just because you read “tacos” doesn’t mean this is a Mexican joint. It’s New Mexican inspired. No, not like New American, but with Mexican food. We’re talking Santa Fe street eats and easy drinking cocktails with some fun shots thrown into the mix.
The bright white space drips with psychedelic funk as I step into Berlinetta Brewing this summer. A few decades of listening to Georges Collinet's "Afropop Worldwide," I recognize Hugh Masekela and am beaming, not just at that, but at the racks of books (actual paper books!) in reach of tables lit by huge windows. This is a very, very promising start for the downtown Bridgeport brewery.
Step up through the back doorway the tasting room shares with lofts in the newly refurbished building and you'll enter a mini in-brewery record store. Racks of LPs beside a twin turntable setup are for sale or maybe trade if you're feeling barter-y. Co-owner (co-brother), and head brewer Rich Ruggiero has also crafted a tube amp powered reel-to-reel Hi-Fi stereo which can drive the sound system at the click of a toggle switch. Walk in the front door, and you'll see it (and likely him) behind the taproom bar.
