Melissa Maggiore of the Maggiore Team is days away from launching the restaurant group’s latest thought, The Italian Daughter Cucina + Cocktails.
Patrons at the new cafe, slated to open all around April 10 in northern Scottsdale, can count on additional than Italian delicacies, even so.
The restaurant is also a piano bar the place attendees can sing along to the classics, from Billy Joel and Frank Sinatra to major hits during the decades.
“We’re likely to be undertaking some elevated Italian foodstuff alongside with a stability of the classics that everybody’s looking for in an atmosphere that you can take pleasure in – no matter if you are on a date night time, a girls’ evening, a group of golfers soon after golfing, and even households,” Maggiore stated.
The Italian Daughter, which will boast fashionable-meets-traditional Italian decor in a quaint and cozy environment, will characteristic manufactured-from-scratch Italian dishes, like Pear and Gorgonzola Ravioli Cacio e Pepe, as very well as craft charcuterie boards and foot-very long build-your-have pizza boards.
Not all dishes will be wholly Italian, either.
“Some have Spanish impact or Asian affect,” Maggiore said. “And some of the dishes will be not just Sicilian, but dishes that you see in other areas of Italy and performed in a way that is far more present-day and on pattern, but nevertheless in a position to keep individuals typical flavors that you seem for in Italian dining.”
The menu will include things like a handful of Melissa’s late father Tomaso Maggiore’s most loved Italian dishes, far too, such as Spaghetti Picchi Pacchiu, which Melissa describes as a “very basic dish of fresh heirloom tomato and garlic – my father’s favorite.”
The dish is so special that 100 % of the proceeds from each individual one particular bought will go to the Tomaso Maggiore Culinary Schooling Scholarship, which was set up in January just after Tomaso’s passing.
“In Italy, we eat very simply, and it was a single of his most loved dishes,” Melissa mentioned. “So, that’s a thing that I have on the menu that I’m hoping we can generate a large amount of cash for this scholarship and corporation that’s a tribute to my father.”
Melissa also has options to increase a pizza oven to the cafe in purchase to provide Sfincione, a Sicilian pizza Tomaso grew up feeding on that’s topped with ricotta, caramelized onions, anchovies and herbed toasted breadcrumbs.
“When my father came to this country back again in 1969, his initial a few restaurants had been pizzerias,” Melissa explained. “So, I’m variety of using it back to in which it all commenced.”
The cafe identify by itself is a tribute to Melissa’s father.
“I’m very pleased of becoming his daughter, and I’m happy of remaining Italian. There are a good deal of things that go together with being an Italian daughter, and I thought, ‘That’s a wonderful identify,’ and it is a great tribute to him,” Melissa stated.
“He taught me anything that I know in this business and definitely in existence, and so I wished to do anything that continued his legacy and blended it with who I am,” she continued.
Tomaso also liked music, Melissa said, so the piano bar also functions as a tribute to his fondness for artists this sort of as Sinatra and Joel.
The Italian Daughter will aspect are living piano tunes by neighborhood musicians nightly.
“Growing up, we would be singing in the automobile all the time when we were being going on excursions,” Melissa recalled. “He was just anyone that was constantly in a excellent mood and usually singing and cooking and laughing. And those people are reminiscences that have aided me get as a result of this tough time in our family’s life.”
“My hope is that the power that he has employed to emulate is current in this restaurant,” she added.
Even the area is a nod to Tomaso: It will substitute Tomaso’s Italian Kitchen.
According to Melissa, her father insisted she get more than the place.
“When my father bought ill, he reported, ‘Melissa, why are you likely to uncover another spot? This is a fantastic spot. I believe in the area. I consider it is fantastic for you. Why never you do it there?’” she recalled.
Melissa experienced been operating on the cafe-piano bar idea with her father considering the fact that very last drop.
She preferred to open a restaurant that she herself would want to regular as a northern Scottsdale resident.
“There is not a large amount for men and women in my age demographic to do up listed here in North Scottsdale. We’re a minor little bit as well previous to go to the bars, but we’re not dull sufficient to just go to meal and go household. And specially with the pandemic, we’ve all been kind of locked up in our residences for so lengthy that I just wanted to provide a thing like this to my neighborhood,” Melissa reported.
Melissa hopes that the Italian Daughter will become a area where by folks can verify their concerns at the doorway, love fantastic Italian food, appreciate live tunes yet again, and, of class, make her father proud.
“The Italian Daughter is a restaurant strategy that I believe that my father would have been actually enthusiastic to see,” she mentioned. “I’m just searching ahead to all people just remaining able to love themselves once again.”
Foremost up to its opening, the Italian Daughter carries on to employ equally back again of the house and entrance of the property placement, together with servers, hosts, and far more.
Those intrigued can electronic mail [email protected].
Details: theitaliandaughter.com