Family fare

History, traditions, and exquisite taste for the real thing bind the ingredients in the Italian South End

November 16, 2008|Patricia Harris and David Lyon, Globe Correspondents

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That first shop had just three tables, but several expansions later, the restaurant seats more than 400. Despite the crystal chandeliers, marble statues, and Bay of Naples murals, pizza is still a mainstay, and diners can watch the staff divvy up a giant mass of dough into individual pies. The signature pizza, says Caputo, is "between a thin New Haven and a thick New York." It's topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, and mixed sweet and hot peppers.

"Sunday afternoon we get the families," Caputo said. Even at a weekday lunch, practically every table was full and diners departed with hefty doggie bags of eggplant rolatini, chicken marsala, or shrimp scampi from recipes by Tony's mother, Edda. Before Edda became a Caputo, she was a Daniele - Franco's aunt.

But not every Italian in Springfield is a Daniele from Bracigliano. There are other tastes in town.

You might guess from their restaurant's name - Typical Sicilian - where Alfonso and Margaret Amore hail from. Although they even attended the same village elementary school, the pair met and married in Springfield. They opened the restaurant a decade ago near The X, as Springfield residents call the intersection of Belmont and Sumner avenues with Dickinson Street. It is an area where many Italian families moved after the interstate rumbled through the old neighborhood.

In 2004 the Amores moved into the current space, with its spare trattoria look, soft jazz soundtrack, and fancy-date vibe. Margaret's son Vincenzo ("call me Enzo") was just completing the day's supply of meatballs (polpetti) when we arrived for lunch. Although Enzo does most of the cooking, his father created the restaurant's signature "penne typical" of sauteed garlic and spinach with grilled chicken in a cream sauce on pasta.

Back in the South End, Joe Frigo is the third generation running his family's eponymous deli. His grandfather, a cheesemaker from Asiago in Northern Italy, came to the United States with four brothers to make cheese in Wisconsin. Relocating to Springfield, he peddled the family's Asiago all over New England. In 1950, he opened a cheese shop across from Mount Carmel church. "He figured it would always be safe," Frigo said.

Frigo's father expanded the business to include custom butchery, and Frigo, who took over more than a decade ago, has branched out into prepared foods. He still sells the Frigo-brand Asiago (the family sold the cheese business years ago) but only after aging it in his cellar.

"It's like a candy store," said police officer Sean Murphy, who was ordering lunch from display cases filled with risotto cakes, gnocchi, pasta Bolognese, chicken Florentine, chicken a la Frigo (mushrooms, broccoli, and Alfredo sauce), spinach lasagna, and giant manicotti stuffed with sausages, spinach, and ricotta. "It's all good," Murphy told us, "but be sure to stop by Albano's for the Italian ice."

Patricia Harris and David Lyon can be reached at harris.lyon@ verizon.net.