At Enoteca Maria on Staten Island, family cooking became the foundation of a restaurant. Grandmothers brought recipes learned at home into a kitchen where their experience was the main qualification.
Joe “Jody” Scaravella opened the restaurant in 2007. What began with Italian food later expanded to dishes prepared by women from many different backgrounds.
A restaurant built around memory
The project’s official history describes Scaravella opening Enoteca Maria after losing his mother, sister and grandmother.
The restaurant was named for his mother, Maria. Its cooking offered a way to carry family traditions into a new setting, shared with people beyond the family table.
In 2015, the project began welcoming nonnas from international backgrounds. Each brought dishes and knowledge rooted in her own life.
Home cooks with something to teach
Calling it a restaurant with “no chefs” misses the skill involved. The distinction is between formal credentials and years of practical cooking experience.
The current invitation to become a nonna welcomes grandmothers and older women known for exceptional food. It says professional chef status is not required.
That places value on expertise often developed outside culinary schools: preparing meals repeatedly, learning from relatives and knowing how a dish should taste.
Rather than assuming a fixed roster or identical menu every night, readers can consult the project’s own calendar and menu for the people and dishes featured.
The story reached Netflix
The restaurant inspired the 2025 film Nonnas, starring Vince Vaughn as Scaravella.
Netflix’s guide to the film explains its real-life inspiration. The movie is a dramatization, so its characters and scenes should not be treated as a documentary record of the restaurant.
What the project describes today
As checked in November 2026, the official reservations page describes a nonprofit dining experience supporting Nonnas of the World Community.
The wider aim includes passing culinary heritage between generations. A meal is one way to share it, but so is recognizing the person who knows how to make it.
The appeal begins with familiar food and extends to a simple question: whose knowledge do we make room for?
Explore more stories of connection through Rishi Sharma’s recordings of older veterans and Andrea and Jimmy’s care-home wedding.