July 19, 2025
They Don’t Hire Chefs — They Hire Grandmas
This Restaurant in New York Hires Grandmothers From Around the World to Cook Traditional Dishes From Their Homelands There’s a little restaurant tucked into a quiet corner of Staten Island, New York, that doesn’t follow the usual playbook. No celebrity chefs. No fusion menus. No Instagram gimmicks. Instead, it does something radically simple — and beautiful. Every day, a grandmother from a different part of the world steps into the kitchen and cooks the dishes of her childhood, the food of her people, the recipes passed down from generations. It’s called Enoteca Maria. But most regulars just call it “Nonna’s.”
