Katy residents who have moved to the Greater Houston area from the Northeast and are seeking Italian food that reminds them of home can find what they are looking for at Antonia’s Cucina Italiana.
Adam Pettit, general manager of Antonia’s, said the owner of the restaurant—Roberto Rosa—moved to Texas in 2006 from Boston and decided to open the eatery using recipes from his grandmother, Antonia Rosa. There are also locations in both Sugar Land and Cypress.
General Manager Adam Pettit oversees a staff of 15 at Antonia’s Cucina Italiana in Katy.[/caption]
“Roberto started off in Boston. He got all his skills in North Boston for about 25 years in the Italian food business,” Pettit said. “There is a lot of northern Italian influence. The northeast coast [of Italy] is where the family originated.”
The restaurant—which has an outdoor patio lined with decorative plants—serves traditional dishes, such as veal piccata and saltimbocca, seafood Genovese, spaghetti with meat sauce, chicken Parmigiana and lasagna.
“We have a lot of people from the Northeast who come here,” he said. “It makes them feel at home.”
The food served at the restaurant—prepared by head chef Elmer Villatoro—is derived from Antonia’s recipes.
“It all started off in [Antonia’s] kitchen. That’s where the seed was planted,” Pettit said.
He said the restaurant uses fresh ingredients and makes dishes by hand in order to maintain authenticity and quality at a reasonable price.
“The veal piccata, it’s a real high-quality veal cutlet that is pounded out very thin,” Pettit said. “The chef gets it all crispy in a really hot pan. It has those pungent capers and that lemon butter sauce.”
The restaurant also features a large selection of wines from Italy, ranging from southern varietals from Sicily to the more hearty red wines found in the north in areas like Tuscany.
Pettit said the staff makes its own homemade limoncello—a lemon zest-infused liquor—on-site and uses it in several unique cocktails.[g-slider gid="148051" width="100%" height="55%"]
For example, the cucumber and salt sparkling limoncello cocktail is made with limoncello, slices of fresh cucumber, a small bit of crushed red pepper flakes, sweet and sour mix and Pellegrino sparkling water. The rim of the glass is salted similar to a margarita.
“It’s very popular,” Pettit said.
Pettit said the May 28 opening of the Typhoon Texas water park a few blocks away is going to enhance business greatly.
“We’re hoping to have people come over and sit on the patio,” he said. “The future is looking good.”
