KELLARI
RESTAURANT GROUP
tHREE Great
est. 2500 bc
Gramercy Area
36 E 20th St, New York, NY 10003
212.777.8448
www.kellari-parea.com
GREEK
SEAFOOD TAVERNA
EST. 2500 BC
MIDTOWN
(THEATRE AREA)
19 WEST 44TH STREET
NYC 10036
BETWEEN 5TH & 6TH
212.221.0144
Chef Spotlight
Restaurant Paradiso
Ferrara Café has been
serving Italian delicacies
for more than a century
Downtown Manhattan has been
a rich melting pot of cultures for
centuries. But it’s only in the past
few decades that tribes of hipsters
and übercool expats have come to mingle with the generations of
ethnic groups that populate areas like SoHo, NoLIta and, of course,
Little Italy. Ferrara Café, which has sat proudly on Grand Street
since 1892, now straddles the dual worlds of cool kids and old Sicil-
ian grandmothers—the old world and the new.
Like a beacon of classic Italian café culture, Ferrara’s marquee-style sign shines day and night, drawing locals and out-of-towners
who have come in search of the kitchen’s famous cannoli, pignoli
cookie (soft or crisp) or late-night cheesecake fix. According to Peter Lepore, who co-owns Ferrara’s with his brother and mother, the
café was as much a part of his upbringing as it was for the families
who lived nearby.
“Every minute my brother and I weren’t in school, we were at
Ferrara’s,” he says. “It’s still an enormous part of our lives.”
Ferrara’s was opened by Lepore’s great-grandfather, Enrico
Scoppa, who emigrated from the Naples region of southern Italy,
bringing a distinctive taste from his homeland’s communal cafés.
