Italian restaurant uses old family recipes

By Michelle Meehan*
mbmeehan@bnd.com

Maria Signorino didn’t live long enough to see her granddaughter, Silvana Mayer, open a restaurant. But the feisty Sicilian matriarch is with Silvana in spirit. Her new Belleville eatery is called Nonna’s Family Restaurant. Nonna means grandmother in Italian in Italian.

“Nonna Maria was a wonderful cook,” explained Silvana, pulling up a chair next to her husband, Chris, in the restaurant’s cozy dinning room.

“A lot of the recipes are from Nonna and from the old country,” Chris added.

As the couple spoke, head chef Mario Signorino, 24, was busy in the kitchen. Mario is Silvana’s cousin. It was his task to gather recipes for the menu.

“He followed Silvana’s mother, Tina Bommarito, around with a notebook getting recipes that were passed down to her,” Chris said. A pinch of this, a handful of that. In keeping with her deceased mother’s tradition, Tina seldom measured amounts and wrote down nothing on paper.

Though Mario – who formerly cooked at Gino’s in St. Louis – knew the importance of exact proportions, it was tough getting Tina to commit.

“You’d ask her a point-blank question and you can’t get a yes or no,” Mario remembered and smiled. “I’d ask, ‘Do you always use veal in the meatballs or do you just want to put veal in the meatballs?’

“We finally got the marinara sauce, the meatball recipe and the salad dressing,” he said proudly.

Made with beef, pork and veal, Nonna’s meatball sandwich is served on a hoagie roll and topped with her famous sauce. Her homemade marinara, which also serves as a topping for the restaurant’s spaghetti and other entrees, is more sweet then spicy, prepared with chunks of tomato, green pepper and onion. Nonna’s trademark salad dressing, a sweet vinaigrette, already has become a customer favorite.

“Our claim to fame,” Silvana said, “is when people come in and want to have ranch or blue cheese dressing, we tell the servers to tell them, ‘You have to try the Italian.’ Once you try it, you never go back.”

Nonna’s Famous House Salad consists of mixed greens, artichoke hearts, green olives, red onions, pepperoncini and provel and Parmesan cheeses.

Made with real cream and butter, the fettuccine alfredo, can be ordered with sautéed vegetables or grilled chicken.

“Pollo Brochettes Mario is marinated grilled chicken seasoned with Italian bread crumbs and covered in a creamy white wine sauce with mushrooms, broccoli flowerettes, sweet red peppers topped with provel cheese,” Chris said of Nonna’s weekend special.

Aside from Italian cuisine, Nonna’s offers a variety of American cuisine, including six-ounce hamburgers, Reuben sandwiches, and a broasted pork chop sandwich.

Entrees ranging from ribeye steak dinner and fried catfish dinner to liver and onions are also available. All dinner entrees are served with choice of potato or rice.

“Our broasted chicken is better than fried chicken in our opinion,” Chris said. “We take the chicken and marinate it overnight. In the morning, we put it in a deep pressure cooker. We use Canola. The way we cook the chicken leaves it moist, real flavorful. But it doesn’t have the calories.”

The parents of three school-aged children, Silvana and Chris know the importance of quick, healthy food.

“Every night, there’s something,” Silvana said. “Soccer practice, swim class… We always have three or four different menus in our car. That’s a trend we’ve noticed with other parents, too…”

Nonna’s offers value-priced meals for families on the go. Ranging in price from $9.50 to $23.95, the call-ahead salad and entrée package – which ranges from pasta to fish and chicken – serves four and is ready to put on the table when you get home.

“The community has been great,” Chris said. “Everybody has been so warm and happy for us, so glad we’re here. We’re just tickled at the acceptance.”