Check out new Italian bistro now open in downtown Perry. Fettuccine bolognese anyone?
Step inside Trattoria di Napoli in downtown Perry and you’ll likely be greeted by proprietor John Staurulakis.
The new Italian bistro at 904 Commerce St. is the first brick and mortar restaurant for Staurulakis, who’s achieving a lifelong goal.
“We’ve taken classic Italian dishes and put our own spin on them,” Staurulakis said. “100%, we make everything in house.”
The restaurant, which already has 1,700 followers on Facebook, opened Monday.
Prior to opening, Staurulakis welcomed The Telegraph for a look inside and he, his executive chef Tim Harko and other staff prepared a few dishes.
The restaurant
Diners have the option of sitting outside at the restaurant’s shaded patio or inside at banquettes along walls, tables in the middle or at the L-shaped bar.
The restaurant features an open kitchen where diners inside can watch their food being prepared.
The centerpiece of the restaurant is the Neapolitan pizza oven that can cook eight pizzas at a time in about 1 to 1-½ minutes at 700 degrees Fahrenheit, the ideal temperature for the restaurant’s house-made dough, Staurulakis said.
In theory, the brick-lined oven from manufacturer Marra Forni can deliver up to 200 pizzas an hour but Staurulakis said he has no plans of doing anything like that.
The 4,500-pound oven was built on site brick by brick because it’s too big to have fit through a restaurant door. The bricks are from Naples, Italy, and unlike commercial bricks, these bricks can withstand up toa 1,200-degree maximum temperature of the oven.
The cuisine
The restaurant offers freshly-sliced Italian meat and cheeses.
“The French have charcuterie and the Italians have salumi,” Staurulakis said as he thinly sliced pancetta.
Salumi, which translates as “salted meat” from Italian, generally refers to Italian cured meats that are often seasoned with a variety of spices, herbs, garlic and pepper to create mild, smokey, and sweet flavors. In addition to pancetta, other salumi examples include prosciutto and bresaola.
Staurulakis also uses pancetta and other salumi to add a depth of flavor to the restaurant’s house bolognese sauce used in various dishes such as the restaurant’s fettuccine bolognese and its lasagna, his personal favorite.
In addition to cured meats, the house bolognese sauce includes ground beef, sliced pork shoulder and shredded mushrooms, he said. The meats are cooked together for about six to eight hours.
The lasagna’s ingredients include bright green spinach pasta, house bolognese, butter-cooked garlic, and ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.
The fettuccine bolognese is simply fettuccine cooked al dente and smothered with the bolognese sauce. Staurulakis grated Italian Grana Padano cheese generously on top.
Another favorite dish of Staurulakis is the watermelon salad with cucumber and green onion in a red wine vinaigrette with chili roasted pistachios.
He also talked about a couple of dessert choices.
The house cheesecake is made with ricotta instead of cream cheese and doesn’t have a crust. The taste is similar to New York style cheesecake but the texture is less formed.
“To me, it’s a thing of beauty,” Staurulakis said.
The restaurant’s cannolis are made with a custom-filling of a ricotta and mascarpone mixture that’s stuffed into house-made shells that have been pressed like waffle cones and rolled. The shells have a slightly sweet taste and are softer than traditional deep-fried cannoli shells.
A few of the cannoli flavors include classic, almond and pistachio. The flavor offerings are expected to rotate.
Staurulakis uses coffee beans from illy, an Italian coffee company that specializes in espresso, to fuel the restaurant’s espresso machine. He made a cup of illy Arabic Selection Nicaragua that the company bills as “soft and enveloping velvety aroma, with characteristic nutty notes.”
The restaurant offers a full bar with signature cocktails, seven beers and an Italian hard soda on tap, and sangria.
Menu prices are expected to range from a $12 appetizer to a $55 dry-aged ribeye special with the house tomato steak sauce. The menu was still being fine-tuned when The Telegraph stopped by on Wednesday.
House specials such as the ribeye are expected to change out from time to time as are some of the salads and desserts.
“We’re always looking for new fun things; recipes that we can play with,” Staurulakis said. “We like to keep things moving — a little change of scenery.”
‘30 years in the making’
Of Greek heritage, Staurulakis is often asked if he’s Italian. He said some people seem surprised that a Greek is opening an Italian restaurant but he jokes that he can cook Chinese, too.
Staurulakis got his start in the restaurant industry when he was only 8, helping his mother with her catering and event-planning business. By 16, he had his own catering business in the Annapolis-D.C-Baltimore area.
He later ended up at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, where he met Harko and the men became fast friends. He then moved to New Orleans where he worked for a couple of high profile restaurants before coming to Perry as part of the original team behind ‘Orleans on Carroll St.
For Staurulakis, opening the restaurant has been “30 years in the making” — something that he said is exciting and surreal at the same time.
“It’s finally coming to fruition,” he said. “It’s hard to put into words.”
He’s already dreaming of next steps, including possibly offering a cannoli cart at the popular Food Truck events in downtown Perry in the near future to maybe even a second restaurant with a new concept a few years down the road.
Trattoria di Napoli can seat 70 people. Hours will be 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
This story was originally published August 9, 2024 at 11:15 AM.