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Chef Mark Anthony
Mazzotta
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Pomodoro
is located in the middle of the Riverside Shopping Center
Between
CVS and Starbucks
off of Route #1 at
Exit #5 of Interstate #95
1247
East Putnam Avenue
Riverside, CT 06878
(203) 698-7779
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When Mark Mazzotta was
at Iona College, he waited tables at night in Papa Razzi
restaurant in White Plains. Little did he know back then
that he would again be working in the same spot a
dozen-plus years later. This time, however, he and his
brother, Joseph, along with partner Scott Baron are the
owners of the restaurant, newly named Antipasti.
The old restaurant was
stripped down to its studs and $6 million later is
itself a work of art, mixing stone, wood and plaster. It
is, as Mark Mazzotta puts it, the brothers' ''crowning
achievement.''
The 12,000-square-foot
restaurant at 1 N. Broadway is three offerings in one; a
wine bar, an antipasti bar and a brick oven pizzeria.
There's enough seating for 350 diners.
A floor-to-ceiling
glass enclosed wine cooler just beyond the bar entices
aficionados with some 500 bottles of wine, 75 percent of
Italian origin. Fifty or so are available by the glass.
Mazzotta points out there are different shaped wine
glasses for the different vintages; no one-size-fits-all
here. Across from the cooler is another glass enclosure
filled with a variety of aged cheeses. The adjoining
antipasti station is ''like an Italian sushi bar,''
Mazzotta said. Diners can be seated in front of a glass
partition and watch as the chefs slice paper thin
prosciutto and then arrange on a plate any combination
of a number of selections from lobster to burratta to
stuffed mushrooms.
A few steps away is the
main dining room, which wraps around to the back to a
smaller and more intimate area. A back door offers a
second entrance complete with a reception desk that
Mazzotta said will be used once the renovations for the
rest of the building are complete and diners become
acquainted with his restaurant. The rear entrance is
near the elevators for the adjacent parking garage.
Mazzotta parts heavy
drapes off the dining room to reveal a wine cellar,
albeit above ground that is used for wine dinners and
wine events.
The brothers are also
winemakers, who while on a trip to Napa Valley two years
ago conceived the idea for Antipasti.
Working in a restaurant
is nothing new for the brothers, who have been in the
business for 30 years, starting as youngsters at their
mother's and uncles' knees in pizzerias in the Bronx and
Westchester County. They were thrown into the business
following the death of their father. Their mom needed
money to raise her young family, so she turned to her
brothers. The uncles took the boys under their wings,
making sure they learned everything from the bottom up.
Mazzotta remembers peeling potatoes at the age of six.
From there it was
dishwasher, busboy, waiter, bartender, pizza maker, line
cook and cashier. They graduated from the pizzerias to
delicatessens to high volume pizzeria-restaurants, a
casual family Italian restaurant, and high-volume
catering facilities to hotels.
It was only natural
that their lifelong love of Italian cuisine would
nurture an entrepreneurial spirit that in 1993,
established Amore Pizza in Scarsdale. Within two years,
Mazzotta said, it became a multimillion-dollar pizzeria.
Five years later, they upped the ante and opened a
family style dining restaurant in Armonk, called Amore
Pizzeria and Pasta. In 2003, they went to Greenwich and
opened Pomodoro Pizzeria and Trattoria. ''It's an
Italian bistro that's a little more sophisticated;
targeting the affluent community.''
Two years later, they
opened Amore Pizzeria in Thornwood. They sold the
Scarsdale location shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. With the latest endeavor, the brothers now
oversee more than 100 full- and part-time employees,
It was during that trip to Napa that the brothers wanted
to do something different. They wanted to present
Italian food in a creative and innovative way, Mazzotta
said. They knew more people were drinking wine. An
antipasti bar was ''the nuts and bolts'' of Italian
tradition. A communal table with a variety of foods.
''It's a celebration of life.''
The elements were
there: pizza bar, wine bar and antipasti bar. Mazzotta
wrote things down and talked with his brother; a Milan-Soho
feel ... nothing stereotypical … integrate old world
elements with the new. A rendering started to emerge.
''We needed to find an architect who felt what we were
feeling.'' Then it was to find the right space. Mazzotta
heard that the North Broadway site would be available in
August 2006. By December they struck a deal. They fine
tuned their design and in May of last year the
renovations began.
''It was fun to see it
come alive.''
They realized that as
much as they enjoyed working in the kitchen, they knew
they couldn't be the chefs for this new restaurant. They
looked for someone who could share their vision. They
found him in top chef Rick Laakkonen, a Culinary
Institute of America graduate who worked in Europe and
Manhattan hotspots. ''He was the cherry on the top,''
Mazzotta said.
All summer, the three
experimented with meals in the kitchens of the other
restaurants. For a week in November they held a private
opening. ''The energy is building,'' Laakkonen said.
Mazzotta said as the
renaissance of downtown White Plains continues, it can
only mean good things for the restaurant. |
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 By
the Slice
Mandy Wolf Detwiler
Pizza sales soar one by one.
Given the time whole pizzas take to order, bake, serve
and eat, entire pies aren't exactly a quick lunch
option. To provide a dine-and-dash lunch experience,
some operations have added pizza by the slice.
Besides attracting time-constrained lunch customers,
serving individual slices can also bring in more money
for the same food cost. For instance, Eric Kozlowski,
owner of Ft. Lauderdale's Primanti Bros., uses a
31-ounce dough ball, which he stretches to 20 inches for
sale by the slice. Cut into 8 pieces, a one-topping
slice sells for $2.70 for a pie profit of $21.60. The
same pizza sold whole is priced at $13 for a one-topping
at a difference of $8.60 per pizza. A five-topping
deluxe slice is $3.40, but Koslowski caps the price
beyond three toppings at $15.95 for a large 18-inch.
''We'll sell on an average week 4,200 slices. In season,
we can sell up to 8,000,'' Kozlowski says.
By-the-slice also allows guests to try a gourmet pizza
they might otherwise be unwilling to try. ''It's a
window to the quality you would get by the pie,'' says
Mark Anthony Mazzotta, owner of Pomodoro
Pizzeria & Trattoria in Connecticut. Pomodoro
sells New York-style gourmet slices including a chicken
parmigiana, white pizza, a Caesar salad slice with
grilled chicken and a Sicilian slice (a thick pan pizza)
priced from $2 to $3.75. ''People can have different
varieties on a daily or weekly basis ... and we hope
that if there's something they really like, if there's a
standout, we hope that they'll return and patronize us
by the pie.''
At Pomodoro, the biggest mover is the Margherita,
which sells for $3.75 by the slice and $16 by the pie.
Mazzotta nearly doubles his profits by selling by
the slice, even using top quality ingredients like
Buffalo mozzarella and San Marzano tomatoes.
Much of a slice's success comes from how it is heated --
or rather, reheated. Operators can store pies in heated
boxes, delivery boxes, display cases or racks and then
pull them to be reheated with an oven or heat lamps.
Most agree that using heat lamps is less than desirable.
Andrew McElderry, owner of two Andrew's Pizza locations
in Oregon and Washington, says he tried many ways of
making and storing pizza by the slice, and ''what we've
finally settled on, what works well, is we make them
when we can as business warrants. We try to keep them as
fresh as possible. We have a Humi-Temp box behind the
counter for when it's really busy, when we know we're
going to burn 'em and turn 'em very quickly. Otherwise,
we make them and we reheat them as we go. Putting them
on a hot plate just dries them out way too much. We do
have a thermal shelf, and we use it during the busy
times when we know they're not even going to be up there
for more than 10 minutes.''
Many slice operators agree that parbaking ensures a
consistent, pleasing mouthfeel, one that isn't too chewy
or dry. If your reheated slice is more along the lines
of day-old pizza than what you'd normally serve, it's
probably a good idea to reformulate your dough.
''We cook the pizza about 85 percent to the finished
product. We never have it held under heat,'' Kozlowski
says. ''We actually have it held in a rack. The health
department expects you to use that product within maybe
four hours. We use it within 30 minutes. We'll make
enough pizzas so that they're gone within 30 minutes.''
Since no two pizzas are identical, there's no industry
standard on how long to reheat a slice.
Rick Glenn, vice president of Oregon-based Pizza
Schmizza said his company, which is a by-the-slice
operation of 29 stores, says, ''You have to figure out
exactly how long you can cook your pies so that when
they go through the reheating process you're actually
finishing them.''
Most Pizza Schmizza units use deck ovens but are
converting to conveyors, and all new stores will use
conveyors. The new ovens will help with consistency and
multiple slice orders, Glenn says.
The pizzas you keep on-hand will depend on your
business. Primanti Bros. keeps at least two cheese
pizzas ready to go at all times, and allows customers to
add up to 5 toppings, then reheats the slices in a
concrete deck oven for about three to four more minutes.
At Andrew's Pizza, ''we change them out all the time,''
McElderry says. ''You can always find a slice of cheese,
or a slice of pepperoni, or a slice of veggie, but we'll
sometimes have six different kinds of pizza up there by
the slice.''
Pizza Schmizza keeps seven pizzas out at any given time
-- cheese, pepperoni and Hawaiian pizzas are standard,
but the company rotates a handful of other offerings.
They use a large vertical window to display their pies.
Don't expect to reheat a slice of cheese and pepperoni
as you would a slice with fresh vegetables. ''Any
vegetable topping reheats very badly,'' says Kozlowski.
''The reason, specifically, is that you want the
vegetable to be cooked. And that's really where you run
into trouble. If you want to put pepperoni on a slice of
pizza, you can have it ready to go in 50 seconds. But
because a mushroom will have that real earthy taste, or
a green pepper, you have to leave those in longer. Even
an onion -- people who want a pizza with onions on it
want the onions to be cooked so it gets sweet. When you
heat up pizza slices from scratch with fresh vegetable
toppings, you have to be very careful to cook it
properly or you can give a product that isn't quite
where it needs to be.
Timing, Kozlowski says, is critical. If a table orders a
variety of slices, ''you put the ones with the
vegetables in (first), then towards the end of that cook
process, you pop the cheese ones in just to heat them
up,'' he says.
Mandy Wolf Detwiler is managing editor at Pizza Today.
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Jan 24, 2007
Pomodoro Pizzeria & Trattoria in Greenwich
By Fran Sikorski |
| Pomodoro
Pizzeria & Trattoria
1247 East
Putnam Avenue
Riverside, Greenwich, 203-698-7779
Serving lunch
and dinner, continuous service, from 11 to 10
Sunday to Thursday; 11 to 11 Friday and
Saturday.
No reservations
necessary; handicapped accessible; major credit
cards; major credit cards; beer and wine;
traditional regional Italian menu, vegetarian
selections; dietary restrictions honored;
take-out, delivery; casual dress; wine dinners;
parking in the Riverside Shopping Plaza.
Appetizers: $3
to $10.95
Soup: $3.95
Salads: $3.75 to $9.95
Pastas: $8.95 to $14.50
Pizzas: $11.95 to $18.50
Lunch entrees: $7 to $12
Dinner entrees: $13.95 to $18.50
Wines by the glass: $7.50 to $8
Wines by the bottle: $21 to $75
Desserts: $2.75 to $6.50 |
- Scott Mullin photo |
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In Riverside
Pomodoro Pizzeria & Trattoria
by FRAN SIKORSKI
I am a great fan of
restaurants blended into shopping centers, and the
latest one I ''discovered'' when I attended a wine dinner
there is Pomodoro Pizzeria & Trattoria in the Riverside
Shopping Plaza in Greenwich.
Owned by Chef Mark
Anthony Mazzotta and his brother Joseph Mazzotta, the
restaurant has a menu that includes classic New
York-style pizza, lunch and dinner entrees, calzones,
overstuffed hot and cold subs, and salad combinations,
The interior of Pomodoro is styled after a real
trattoria with cozy seating.
Complementing an
extensive menu of regional Italian fare is a choice wine
list. There are 26 housemade pasta dishes ranging from
traditional spaghetti and meatballs to fettuccine
Alfredo, penne amore, gnocchi Bolognese, and tortellini
carbonara. In addition to Mark Mazzotta, Rene Tejeda is
chef at Pomodoro in Greenwich.
Signature pastas
include cavatelli Monte Bianco, sauteed with prosciutto,
sweet peas and artichoke hearts in a brandy-cream sauce,
and spaghetti caprese, tossed with diced tomato, Tuscan
extra-virgin olive oil, fresh basil with a hint of
garlic-baked with mozzarella.
Among the favorites are
eggplant parmigiana, chicken Marsala and sausage and
peppers, as well as Tuscan chicken stuffed with fresh
spinach, pine nuts, and provolone in a bacon, onion and
fresh thyme cream sauce.
Other house specialties
include veal Sorrentino, layered with eggplant,
prosciutto and fresh mozzarella in a cream sherry
reduction with portobello mushrooms, and shrimp Francese,
battered jumbo butterfly gulf shrimp braised in a lemon,
butter and chardonnay wine sauce.
Among the ''must have''
desserts are zeppoli, small balls of fried dough covered
with powdered sugar; freshly filled cannolis; tiramisu;
and an exceptionally decadent cheesecake. Try any of
these, mated with a rich espresso or creamy cappuccino.
The Mazzotta brothers
both had early training in the restaurant business.
Their uncles owned and operated several pizzerias in the
Bronx and Westchester County where they worked.
After gaining
experience, Mark and Joseph felt they had acquired
enough confidence to open their own restaurant in 1993,
which was Amore Pizzeria, in Scarsdale, N.Y. A second
Amore Pizzeria was opened in Armonk in 1998, followed by
Pomodoro in Greenwich in 2003, and in 2005, Amore
Pizzeria in Thornwood, N.Y.
In 2007, Mark and
Joseph Mazzotta will open Antipasti Wine & Antipasto Bar
at 1 North Broadway in White Plains, an upscale wine bar
featuring a small-plate menu of creative modern Italian
fare and an extensive list of paired global wines.
The hearty Pomodoro
wine dinner we enjoyed began with a glass of prosecco
with formaggio, followed by a creamy lobster bisque;
autumn salad of butter lettuce glossed in a raspberry
vinaigrette with port wine, poached pears, roasted
chestnuts, dry figs and crumbled ricotta paired with a
2005 Sonoma County Sauvignon Blanc.
The appetizer was
asparagus wrapped with ribbons of prosciutto di parma,
melted Gorgonzola drizzled with a warm honey and aged
balsamic, served with a 2004 Paso Robles-Barrel 27
Syrah.
House-made papparadelle
in a wild boar sauce was matched with a 2003 super
Tuscan Primavoce, followed by pesce Mediterraneo,
pan-seared wild Atlantic salmon fillet partnered with
New Zealand vongole and featuring a sauce of
Mediterranean olives, capers, with a white wine-saffron
demi-glace, served with a 2005 Mirassou Pinot Noir.
A second entree was
chicken calabrese, morsels of boneless chicken breast
with portobello mushrooms and fire-roasted peppers and a
Chianti wine sauce with a 2003 Sonoma-Louis Martini
Cabernet Sauvignon. The grand finish was a selection of
housemade desserts.
The good news here is
that menu prices at Pomodoro Pizzeria & Trattoris are
less than you will find in many Fairfield County
restaurants and the quality of the food is outstanding.
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THE
RECORD-REVIEW
January 12, 2007
Page 10
 By
EVE MARX
Riverside, Conn. might seem a long way to go for Italian cuisine
but, trust me, Pomodoro Pizzeria and Trattoria is well worth it.
Not only is the food beyond outstanding (and the prices gentle,
besides), it is a pretty drive over if you're up for a bit of a
field trip. Besides you never know when you might be in that
part of the world, seeing that Riverside is technically adjacent
to Greenwich. Ex-wives, ex-boyfriends, your mother and her new
husband just might live there, and even if they don't, if you
happen to be in that neck of Fairfield County and your belly
says it's time for a bite, Pomodoro's definitely the place.
The restaurant is nestled in a busy shopping center but don't
let the convenience store location fool you: this is a
first-class establishment. The decor, for starters, is a far cry
from any mundane, standard-issue Italian family restaurant
you've put up with simply because it's close by. There's classy
ambience to spare, with plenty of tables for two and many booths
with the kind of high, screened backs and sides that make 'it
possible to never see (or hear) anybody else. Stunning Italian
tile and flattering chandelier light plus that lush touch of
real napery uplift the psyche. The very attentive and
knowledgeable waitstaff complete the picture, helping create the
illusion that you're in a trendy Upper East Side' Manhattan
dining spot.
And then there's the food.
The moment you're seated, you're treated to a complementary
plate of chunks of delightfully crumbly parmesan cheese, fresh
salami and black and green .olives. This is a real whet to the
appetite. The thing about Pomodoro is that you should come
hungry. On the menu every day are outstanding classics such as
Chicken Cacciatore, Veal Pizzaiollo and Shrimp Francese. The
pastas are alluring, penne alla vodka, gnocchi Bolognese,
spaghetti with clam sauce. The Mazzotta brothers, Mark and
Joe. The pastas are alluring, penne alla vodka gnocchi
Bolognese, spaghetti with clam sauce. The Mazzota brothers, Mark
and Joe, offer their own gourmet. pizzas, ranging from margherita to white pizza to four cheese pizza to something
called the Putnam Avenue Special which is topped with
caramelized onions, oven-roasted peppers and gorgonzola and
reggiano parmiagian cheese.. They also offer 16 different entree
salads, all of which can be further refined through the
additions of grilled chicken, grilled shrimp, grilled Portobello
mushrooms or five different kinds of cheese. A harvest salad of
mixed field greens, roasted walnuts, apples dried cherries,
ricotta salata in a citrus vinaigrette sounds absolutely
delicious.
My company, and I chose to stick mostly to the day's specials,
which were indeed quite special. We began with an order of
calan1ari which was a pile of perfectly golden fried seafood
served with, a bright marinara sauce. I thought I was in the
mood for Fettucine Alfredo but was easily talked into a
signature dish called Cavatelli Monte Bianco which was
ear-shaped pasta sautéed with prosciutto, sweet peas, and
artichoke hearts tossed in a sublime brandy cream sauce. We also
had boneless breast of chicken sautéed with portobello mushrooms
and fire-roasted peppers and Chicken Valdastano, one of
Pomodoro's most ordered poultry plates, layered with prosciutto
di Parma and met red fresh mozzarella cheese served in an
imported porcini mushroom, port wine sauce. All entrees come
with a choice of spaghetti, ziti, salad or a vegetable. While
not quite ''family style,'' servings are large. When dining a
deux, consider springing for the $3 split-plate charge.
The
Mazzotta brothers came by their profession the hard way.
Their uncles owned and operated several pizzerias in Westchester
and the Bronx, and growing up both boys worked tirelessly in
their uncles' restaurants after their father died to bring money
into the house. In 1993 they opened their first pizzeria in
Scarsdale, Amore, and within two. years turned what had been a
five- time failure operation into a multi million-dollar
business. From there graduated to a larger casual dinning
family-style restaurant. with a second Amore in Armonk which
opened in 1998. In 2003 they created Pomodoro, their upscale
Italian bistro in Riverside (Greenwich). The newest Amore opened
last year in Thornwood. They are planning yet another opening
this year, Antipasti Wine and Antipasto Bar in White Plains,
featuring the new small-plates menu and an extensive wine
selection from across the. globe.
Pomodoro, which means
''tomato'' by. the way, is part of a new
wave of restaurants that bridge the gap between (groan) family
dining and a place to party with friends or bring a date. The
prices are easy, with appetizers around $7 and salads, even
fancy ones, running around $9.95. Pasta dishes are all under $14
and even the most complex entrees, are still well under the $20
mark. You don't have to break the bank to dine here, but the
quality of the food and the excellence of the service, not to
mention the upscale ambience, don't make you feel like you've in
any way compromised.
Pomodoro is located at:
1247 East Putnam Ave. in Riverside; 203-698-7779. Visit
www.PomodoroRiverside.com for directions, menus and details. |
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